i  /' 


n 


'^ 


'^\   '        BY 

lfohN\ON 


First  Jay — Wailing  Jot   the  teacher. 


THE   COUNTRY    SCHOOL 
IN    NEW  ENGLAND 


TEXT    AND    ILLUSTRATIONS    BY 

CLIFTON     lOHNSON 


'^<^^    OF   TH?     ^ . 


NEW     YORK 
D.    APPLETON     AND     COMPANY 

1893 


•tJ6 


^iH^a 


Copyright,  1893, 
By  D.   APPLETON   AND   COMPANY. 


Electrotyped  and  Printed 
■  THE  Appleton  Press,  U.  S.  A. 


CONTENTS. 


PART    I. 


PAGB 


Old-fashioned  School  Days,  1800- 1825 i 

PART    II. 

The  Mid-Century  Schools,  1840-1860 31 

PART    III. 

The  Country  School  of  To-day 56 

PART    IV. 
How  the  Scholars  Think  and  Write 83 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PAGE 

First  day— Waiting  for  the  teacher Frontispiece 

An  old-time  school  girl i 

A  little  red  schoolhouse  at  the  parting  of  the  roads  ........         3 

Schoolgirls 6 

The  school  at  work  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  Facing     8 

Snowballing    ...............11 

Schoolboys       ..............  Facing   1  5 

The  road  to  learning        .............15 

A  hard  sum     ...............17 

Work  for  the  boy  after  school  .  .  .         .  .  .  .         .         .         .  .21 

Recess— Watching  a  team  go  by Facing  22 

On  the  way  home  from  school 24 

Getting  her  lesson 27 

The  teacher  going  home 30 

A  winter  morning    ..............       31 

The  school  plays  Drop  the  Handkerchief         ........  Facing  31 

The  road  to  school 33 

A  hillside  schoolhouse 35 

Cubby-house  dolls  ..............       37 

On  the  way  to  school       ............  Facing  38 

A  Saturday  holiday.     Eating  sassafras 39 

Doing  arithmetic  examples  on  the  blackboard 42 

After  school 44 

Passing  the  water    .........•■•■•       4^' 

A  play-school  in  the  hayfield  .......■■■■  1'  acing  48 

Out  at  little  recess 48 

A  punishment 5<> 


Vi  LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS. 

The  school  takes  a  boat-ride   ............  52 

A  holiday.     Playing  at  gypsies         ...........  54 

A  drawing  by  one  of  the  school-children  .  .  .  .         .  .  .         .  -55 

In  the  meadow  at  recess 56 

A  New  England  academy        ............  57 

An  excuse  for  being  late Facing  58 

The  Riverbend  schoolhouse 60 

The  boy  who  makes  the  fire 61 

Gymnastics 63 

A  game  of  Fox  and  Geese 64 

Starting  the  fire       ..............  66 

The  close  of  recess           .............  67 

Writing  time Facing  69 

A  class  in  geography       .............  70 

Sharpening  his  slate  j^encil       .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  -71 

The  class  in  the  Fifth  Reader           ...........  72 

The  Primer  class 74 

Schoolroom  decoration 75 

A  drink  from  a  stream  in  the  woods  on  the  way  home  from  school                     .         .         .  jj 

A  noon  lunch  on  the  river        ...........  Facing  78 

A  rainy  day  school  at  home     ............  80 

One  of  the  big  boys 81 

The  good  boy  who  is  allowed  to  study  out  of  doors          .......  82 

Writing  a  composition 83 

The  commonest  type  of  the  country  schoolhouse 84 

After  a  snowstorm  ..............  89 

The  second  class  in  reading     .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .       '  .  Facing  91 

The  teacher  gives  one  of  the  boys  a  shaking.     Drawn  by  the  boy 93 

The  school  on  skates Facmg  94 

Facsimile  of  one  of  the  youngest  scholars'  manuscript      .......  97 

Blackboard  drawings — "  A  farmer,  his  little  girl,  and  his  wife  " 98 

A  Connecticut  V^allcy  schoolhouse  in  floodtime 99 

A  schoolboy 100 


THE  COUNTRY  SCHOOL. 


OLD-FASHIONED    SCHOOL    DAYS,    1800-1825. 


WINTER. 

IGHTY  years  ago,  in  the  kitchen  of  a  farm- 
house on  the  hills  in  western  Massachusetts, 
a  woman,  birch  broom  in  hand,  was  sweep- 
ing the  floor.  It  was  early  on  a  Wednesday 
morning  of  the  first  week  in  December,  and  a 
brisk  fire  was  burning  in  the  cavernous  fire- 
place. The  woman's  daughter  was  wiping  off 
the  table  at  the  side  of  the  room  where  she 
had  been  washing  the  breakfast  dishes.  She 
was  a  chubby  little  girl,  rather  small  of  her  age, 
and  stood  on  tiptoe  while  she  gave  the  table 
a  vigorous  scouring. 
"Isn't  it  school-time,  Betsey.?"  asked  her  mother. 
The  little  girl  hung  the  dishcloth  in  the  back  room  and  trotted 
into  the  hall  where  stood  a  solemn-faced,  tall  clock.  She  looked 
up  at  it  earnestly  a  few  moments,  made  some  half-whispered  cal- 
culations, and  returned  to  the  kitchen.  "  It's  twenty  minutes  past 
eight,"  she  said  to  her  mother. 

"  Well,  change  your  apron  and  run  along.     You  won't  be  much 


An  old-tmu    <:ihLw/iSi>l 


2  THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL. 

too  soon.  There's  your  dinner  basket  by  the  door.  I  put  up  your 
dinner  when   I   cleared  away  the  breakfast  things." 

Mrs.  Hall  swept  the  dust  she  had  brushed  together  into  the 
fireplace  and  went  about  her  other  housework.  Betsey  quickly 
made  herself  ready,  and  soon  was  running  along  the  highway 
toward  the  schoolhouse.  The  morning  was  clear  and  cold ;  the 
sun  just  above  the  southeastern  horizon  was  shining  brightly,  and 
made  the  brown,  frosty  fields  sparkle  in  the  light.  Betsey  lived 
more  than  a  mile  from  the  schoolhouse.  The  road  was  a  rough 
one.  For  a  part  of  the  way  it  led  through  the  woods,  but  in  the 
main  it  was  bordered  by  open  fields  and  shut  in  by  stone  walls, 
Betsey  usually  ran  down  the  hills,  and  was  pretty  sure  to  arrive 
at  the  schoolhouse  quite  out  of  breath. 

Her  clothing  was  very  neat,  but  rude  in  pattern  and  extremely 
plain.  It  had  all  been  woven,  colored,  and  made  up  at  home.  She 
herself  had  done  some  of  the  knitting,  and  had  spent  tiresome  hours 
at  the  quill  wheel.  Her  dress  was  woolen,  plain,  and  straight,  with 
no  ruffles  at  neck  or  skirt,  and  it  was  considerably  longer  than  would 
be  worn  by  little  girls  of  her  age  now.  Hooks  and  eyes  served 
instead  of  buttons  to  fasten  it  at  the  back.  She  wore  a  little  apron, 
tied  at  the  waist,  of  blue  and  white  checked  cotton.  Her  stout 
leather  shoes  were  broad-soled  and  comfortable,  but  only  ankle 
high.  Stockings  and  mittens  were  striped  blue  and  white.  Over 
her  short-cropped  hair  she  wore  a  little  white  woolen  blanket  about 
a  yard  square.     In  her  hand  was  the  basket  containing  her  lunch. 

When  she  came  trotting  up  to  the  schoolhouse  she  found  a 
dozen    of   her   mates    on    the    sunny  side    of  the    building    kicking 


OLD-FASHIONED   SCHOOL   DAYS— WINTER.  3 

their  licels  against  tlic  clapboards  and  waiting  for  the  teacher. 
Betsey  carried  her  dinner  basket  into  the  entry  and  then  ran  out 
and  said,  "  Let's  play  tag  till  the  schoolmaster  comes."     The  others 


A  little  red  seJwclhpu^e  at  the  parting  of  the  roads. 


agreed,  and  soon  all  were  in  motion,  running,  dodging,  and  shout- 
ing till  the  little  yard  and  narrow  roadway  seemed  full  of  flying 
figures. 

The  schoolhouse  was  a  small,  one-story  building,  brown  with 
age.  Behind,  the  woods  came  close  up  ;  before  it  was  a  little  open 
yard  which  merged  into  the  highway  that  came  over  the  hill  east- 
ward and  then  rambled  west  along  the  level.  A  little  walk  down 
the  road  was  a  house.  No  other  was  in  sight,  though  at  least  half 
a  dozen  scattered  homes  lay  over  the  hill  just  beyond  view.  Op- 
posite the    schoolhouse  was  a   pasture,  and    the   children    had  worn 


4  THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL. 

a  routr^h  path  through  the  grasses  hy  the  roadside  on  their  way  to 
and  from  the  brook  over  the  wall  where  they  got  water  to  drink. 

This  morning  the  smoke  was  curling  up  from  the  chimney 
straight  into  the  frosty  air.  The  big  boys  took  turns  in  making 
the  fire.  To-day  Jonas  Bird,  with  his  coat  tight  buttoned  and  the 
collar  up,  cap  pulled  down  over  his  ears,  and  hands  in  his  pockets, 
had  come  stumping  along  the  hard  frozen  road  just  after  sun-up. 
There  was  no  lock  to  the  schoolhouse — few  people  at  that  time 
thought  of  locking  doors — and  Jonas  walked  right  into  the  little 
entry.  The  space  on  one  side  was  half  filled  with  three-foot  wood. 
On  the  other  side  were  rows  of  pegs  for  the  scholars'  hats. 

An  axe  was  handy,  and  the  boy  proceeded  to  split  some  kindlings. 
He  carried  an  armful  of  these  inside.  Jonas  poked  among  the  ashes, 
found  the  coals  still  alive,  and  soon  had  a  fine  blaze  in  the  big  fire- 
place. He  brought  in  more  wood  from  the  entry  and  some  larger 
wood  from  the  yard,  where  it  had  been  left  by  the  farmers  of  the 
district  for  the  scholars  to  cut  up.  It  was  sled  length  as  they  left  it, 
and  it  had  to  be  cut  two  or  three  times  before  it  was  ready  for  the 
fireplace.  Jonas  chopped  what  he  judged  would  be  a  day's  supply, 
then  went  in  and  sat  in  the  master's  chair  by  the  fire  and  made  him- 
self comfortable  awaiting  the  arrival  of  the  others. 

The  room  was  plain  and  bare — no  pictures,  no  maps,  not  even  a 
blackboard.  The  walls  were  sheathed  up  with  wooden  panels,  but 
the  ceiling  was  plastered.  On  each  side,  to  the  north  and  south,  was 
a  window,  and  at  the  back  two.  The  fireplace  was  on  the  fourth  side, 
projecting  somewhat  into  the  room.  To  the  right  of  it  was  the 
entrance,  and  to  the  left  was  a  door  opening  into  a  dark  little  closet 


OLD  FASHIONED    SCHOOL    DAYS- -WINTER.  5 

where  were  pegs  for  the  girls  to  hang  their  things  on,  and  a  bench 
where  they  set  their  dinner  baskets. 

A  single  continuous  line  of  desks  ran  around  three  sides  of  the 
room,  leaving  an  open  space  next  the  wall  where  the  big  scholars 
walked  when  they  went  to  their  places.  The  seat  which  accom- 
panied this  long  desk  was  also  continuous,  and  the  scholars  were 
obliged  to  step  over  it  before  being  seated.  This  and  the  desk  were 
raised  on  a  little  platform  a  few  inches  above  the  level  of  the  floor. 
On  the  front  of  the  desk  was  another  seat,  low  down,  for  the  smaller 
children.  These  could  use  the  desk  for  a  back,  but  had  no  desk 
themselves,  while  the  olders  ones  had  the  desk  but  no  back.  In  the 
open  space,  in  front,  was  the  teacher's  table,  and  on  it  tw^o  or  three 
books,  an  ink  bottle  and  quills,  a  lot  of  copy  books,  and  a  ruler. 
Jonas  was  using  the  teacher's  chair,  but  he  replaced  it  by  the  desk 
when  the  other  scholars  began  to  arrive. 

In  the  midst  of  the  game  of  tag  some  one  cried,  "The  school- 
master's coming,"  and  the  uproar  ceased.  He  was  a  quiet,  rather 
stern-looking  young  man,  the  son  of  a  farmer  of  a  neighboring  town. 
For  several  winters  he  had  been  teaching,  but  not  with  the  idea  of 
making  that  his  calling.  He  had  gone  through  the  common  schools 
with  credit,  and  studied  at  an  academy  for  a  year  or  two.  Summers 
he  worked  on  the  farm,  and  he  intended  to  be  a  farmer,  but  in  winter 
work  was  slack  at  home,  and,  as  he  could  be  spared,  he  took  the 
opportunity  to  gain  ready  money  by  teaching.  There  were  many 
young  men  in  the  country  towns  doing  likewise. 

His  pay  was  small,  but  he  was  at  no  expense  for  his  living,  as  he 
"  boarded  round  " — that  is,  he  stayed  with  each  family  of  the  neighbor- 


^  THE    COUNTRY   SCHOOL. 

hood  for  a  length  of  time  proportioned  to  the  number  of  scholars  it 
sent  to  the  school.  At  the  beginning  of  the  term  the  teacher  divided 
the  number  of  days  by  the  number  of  pupils,  and  thus  determined 
how  long  he  should  stay  with  each  family.  It  sometimes  happened 
that  after  staying  all  around  the  allotted  time  there  were  still  a  few 
days  left  to  teach,  and  then,  in  order  to  have  things  come  out  even, 
the  master  would  change  his  boarding  place  every  night.  When 
neighbor  met  neighbor  it  was  always  an  interesting  topic  of  inquiry 
where  the  teacher  vvas  stopping  and  where  he  was  going  next,  and 
his  having  to  "warm  so  many  beds"  was  a  standing  joke. 

The  teacher  of  this  winter's  school  was  at  present  staying  with  the 
Holmans,  and  the    four    children  of  the  family   came  down  the  hill 

with  him,  but  ran  on  ahead 
when  they  approached  the 
schoolhouse.  All  had  dinner 
baskets,  the  master  included. 
When  he  was  nearly  to  the 
schoolhouse  the  scholars  ran 
in,  and  when  he  entered  the 
door  he  found  them  all  stand- 
ing in  their  places.  He  re- 
moved his  hat,  bowed,  and 
said  "  Good  morning,"  and  the 
whole  school  "  made  their 
manners"  —  the  boys  bowed 
and  the  girls  courtesied — and 
said      "  Good     morning,     sir." 


OLD-FASHIONED    SCHOOL    i:) AYS— WINTER.  7 

Then  the  older  ones  stepped  over  their  seats,  all  sat  down,  and 
school  began  at  once. 

Schools  were  supposed  to  begin  at  nine  o'clock,  but  few  teachers 
had  watches,  and  they  could  not  well  be  exact.  Some  would  bring 
hour  glasses,  but  the  only  timekeeper  a  school  was  sure  to  have  was 
a  noon  mark  on  a  southern  window  sill.  Even  this  was  useless  on 
clouded  days,  and  a  good  deal  of  guessing  had  to  be  done. 

The  first  exercise  in  the  morning  was  reading  in  the  Testament. 
Each  scholar  who  was  able  read  two  verses.  In  those  times  prayers 
were  not  said  in  school,  and  the  reading  completed  the  morning 
worship.  The  scholars  began  studying  now,  and  the  smallest  chil- 
dren were  called  up  to  say  their  letters.  The  winter  term  began  the 
week  after  Thanksgiving,  and  continued  twelve,  fourteen,  and  even 
sixteen  weeks.  The  cold  weather,  bad  traveling,  and  distance  pre- 
vented most  of  the  smaller  ones  from  coming;  but  the  big  boys  and 
girls,  who  had  been  kept  out  at  work  during  the  summer,  came 
instead,  and  the  school  would  number  twenty-five  or  thirty  pupils. 
The  oldest  scholars,  though  almost  men  and  women  in  size,  were 
none  older  than  fourteen  or  fifteen.  Most  left  school  for  good  at 
that  age,  but  a  few  would  study  at  an  academy  in  a  neighboring  town, 
and  now  and  then  a  boy  would  fit  himself  for  college  by  studying 
with  the  minister.  College  education  for  girls  was  unthought  of,  and 
no  institution  existed  where  such  education  could  be  had  for  the 
daughters. 

The  youngest  scholars  had  no  books.  When  they  recited  they 
came  up  before  the  teacher,  who  pointed  out  the  letters  in  the  Speller 
with  his  quill.     This  book  was  the  famous  Webster's  Spelling  Book, 


8  THE    COUNTRY   SCHOOL. 

a  blue-covered,  homely  little  volume,  containing,  besides  the  alphabet, 
the  figures,  Roman  and  Arabic,  days  of  the  week,  months  of  the  year, 
abbreviations,  names  of  the  States,  and  various  other  things.  The 
speller  also  served  as  a  reader.  The  first  and  simplest  reading  began 
with,  "No  man  mav  put  off  the  law  of  God."  Farther  on  were  some 
little  stories  and  fables,  accompanied  by  a  few  rude  pictures.  Lastly 
came  the  Moral  Catechism,  starting  with  the  question,  "  Is  pride 
commendable  }" 

In  spelling,  the  children  began  with  words  of  two  letters.  Elderly 
people  sometimes  speak  of "  learning  their  a-b  abs,"  meaning  by  that 
the  learning  to  spell  words  of  two  letters.  They  would  spell  thus : 
"A-b  ab,  e-b  eb,  i-b  ib,  o-b  ob,  u-b  ub,  b-a  ba,  b-e  be,  b-i  bi,  b-o  bo, 
b-u  bu,  b-y  by,"  and  so  on  right  through  the  alphabet.  By  the  time 
they  possessed  a  Speller  they  would  perhaps  be  able  to  spell  cat  and 
dog  and  other  three-letter  words.  Besides  spelling,  they  learned 
something  of  the  sounds  of  the  letters  and  to  count  a  little.  When 
the  class  finished  reciting  they  were  sent  to  their  seats.  The  smaller 
children  had  neither  slates  nor  books  to  amuse  themselves  with,  and 
after  reciting  could  only  sit  still  and  watch  and  listen  to  the  others. 
Very  tiresome  they  found  this  sometimes.  If  they  became  restless,  so 
much  the  worse  for  them,  for  the  teacher  would  then  reprimand  them, 
and  tell  them  to  fold  their  hands  and  be  quiet,  and  perhaps  threaten 
them  with  punishment. 

The  next  older  class  were  taking  their  first  reading  lessons  from 
the  Speller.  Even  the  oldest  of  the  scholars  used  that  book  to  spell 
from. 

Another  of  the  schoolbooks  of  the  time  was  The  New  England 


OLD-FASHIONED    SCHOOL    DAYS— WINTER.  p 

Primer.  It  was  a  small,  thin,  blue-covered  volume,  contained  many 
little  stories,  proverbs,  rhymes,  and  questions,  and  quaint  little  wood- 
cuts, and  was  quite  religious  in  tone.  In  one  place  the  alphabet  was 
given  with  a  picture  and  rhyme  for  each  letter.  Both  pictures  and 
rhymes  were  so  rude  that,  in  spite  of  the  seriousness  of  the  themes, 
they  seem  to  us  very  humorous.     Here  are  specimens  of  the  jingles  : 

"  Noah  did  view 
Tiie  Old  World  and  New." 

"  Zaccheus,  he, 
Did  climb  the  tree 
His  Lord  to  see." 

"  Young  Obadias, 
David  and  Josias, 
All  were  pious." 

About  the  middle  of  the  forenoon  the  scholars  put  aside  other 
tasks,  and  wrote.  At  close  of  school,  on  the  night  before,  the  teacher 
had  set  their  copies — that  is,  he  had  written  a  sentence  across  the 
top  line  of  a  page  in  each  scholar's  "  copy  book."  The  children  made 
these  copy  books  at  home  from  large  sheets  of  blank,  unlined  paper, 
which  they  folded  and  sewed  into  a  cover  of  brown  paper,  or  one 
made  from  an  old  newspaper.  In  school,  each  pupil  had  a  ruler  and 
plummet,  and  with  these  made  the  lines  to  write  on.  They  had  no 
lead  pencils,  but  the  plummet  answered  instead.  Plummets  were 
made  at  home  by  melting  waste  lead  and  running  it  in  shallow 
grooves  two  or  three  inches  long  cut  in  a  stick  of  wood.  Sometimes 
the  cracks  in  the  kitchen  floor  were  found  to  be  convenient  places  to 
run  the  lead  in.     When  the  metal  cooled  a  little  it  was  whittled  and 


JO  THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL. 

smoothed  down  and  pointed,  and  jjerhaps,  as  a  final  touch,  a  hole  was 
bored  through  the  big  end,  that  the  owner  might  hang  his  plummet 
on  a  string  about  his  neck. 

Scholars  just  beginning  to  write  made  "  hooks  and  trammels,"  the 
"hooks"  being  curved  lines,  and  the  "trammels"  straight  ones. 
After  practicing  on  these  a  while  they  were  advanced  to  letters,  and 
later  to  words  and  sentences.  Each  pupil  had  a  bottle  of  ink  and  a 
quill  pen.  Whenever  the  pen  became  worn  or  broken  the  teacher 
was  asked  to  "  mend  "  it ;  or,  if  entirely  used  up,  the  scholar  would 
bring  a  fresh  quill  to  the  teacher,  and  say,  "  Please,  sir,  will  you  make 
my  pen  for  me?"  and  the  teacher,  with  his  jackknife,  would  comply. 
The  mending  was  simply  whittling  it  down  and  making  a  new  point. 
There  was  quite  a  knack  in  doing  this  quickly  and  well. 

Toward  eleven  o'clock  the  girls  had  their  recess,  but  it  was  short, 
and  gave  them  little  time  to  play.  At  the  end  of  five  minutes  the 
teacher  came  to  the  door  and  rapped  sharply  on  the  side  of  the 
building  with  his  ruler,  which  was  the  signal  for  them  to  come  in. 
Then  the  boys  had  their  recess. 

Of  history,  grammar,  and  geography  the  scholars  learned  very 
little.  The  Speller  barely  touched  upon  these  subjects,  but  they  had 
no  separate  text-books. 

The  children  were  taught  to  count  on  their  fingers,  and  when,  in 
summer,  they  came  barefoot,  toes,  too,  were  made  to  do  duty.  Some 
progress,  besides,  was  made  in  adding  and  subtracting.  In  learning  to 
multij)ly  they  used  little  rhymes  to  help  their  memory,  on  the  same 
plan  as  the  counting  ditty  in  Mother  Goose,  "  One  two,  buckle  my 
shoe,"  etc.      Finally,  when  they  were   in  the    highest   class   in   school. 


OLD-FASHIONED    SCHOOL    DAYS— WLNTER. 


El 

they  had  a  text-book  called  Root's  Arithmetic.  Like  all  the  smaR^'^^T^^-^ 
schoolbooks,  it  had  a  grayish  blue  cover  of  paper  pasted  over  thin 
wood.  If  the  book  were  roughly  handled,  or  bent  much,  the  wood 
cracked  and  splintered,  and,  with  ten  restless  little  fingers  handling  it, 
the  cover,  fragment  by  fragment,  soon  disappeared.  The  arithmetic 
scholars  had  slates  on  which  they  did  their  sums.  When  the  teacher 
pronounced  the  sums  correct,  these  were  neatly  copied  from  the  slate 
into  blank  books,  made  like  their  writing  books  and  known  as 
"  ciphering  books." 

The  forenoon  wore  away,  and  the  sun  shone  in  full  at  the  southern 
windows.  Just  as  the  shadow  of  the  middle  window  frame  crept  into 
a  little  furrow  cut  in  the  wooden  sill  with  a  jackknife,  school  was 
dismissed.     Before  the  shadow  was  out  on  the  other  side  of  the  noon 


12  THE    COUNTRY   SCHOOL. 

mark  the  girls  had  secured  their  dinner  baskets  from  the  little  closet 
back  of  the  chimney,  and  the  boys  had  grabbed  up  theirs  with  their 
hats  in  the  entry,  and  the  whole  school  was  in  the  yard.  To-day 
they  all  climbed  over  to  the  sunnv  side  of  the  stone  wall  back  of 
the  schoolhouse,  and  soon  were  busy  eating. 

Beneath  the  cloth  in  the  square  little  baskets  were  bread  and 
butter  and  doughnuts  and  gingerbread,  and  perhaps  an  apple  or  two. 
When  they  had  finished  eating  they  began  to  chatter  more  freely,  and 
most  of  the  scholars  clambered  back  over  the  wall  and  ran  down  to 
the  brook  for  a  drink.  Liddy  Marks  had  brought  a  bottle  of 
sweetened  water,  and  didn't  need  to  go  to  the  brook.  The  sweeten- 
ing was  supplied  by  maple  sugar,  and  I  fancy  the  scholars  looked  on 
with  watery  mouths  and  envious  eyes  while  Liddy  emptied  her 
bottle. 

In  the  wood  back  of  the  schoolhouse  were  many  beech  trees, 
now  bare-limbed,  but  very  handsome  in  their  smooth,  gray,  mottled 
bark.  Among  the  leaves  on  the  ground  were  many  of  the  brown 
nuts  scattered  there  by  autumn  winds  and  frosts.  The  squirrels  were 
busy  harvesting  them,  and  with  noisy  chatter  raced  about  over  the 
ground  and  up  the  tree  trunks.  The  children  came  too,  shouting 
and  tumbling  about  among  the  rustling  leaves.  With  a  bit  of  brush 
they  would  poke  about  under  the  beeches,  and  eat,  and  fill  their 
pockets.  Then,  perhaps,  they  would  start  a  game  of  "  hide  and  seek," 
and  when  the  one  at  the  goal  shouted  "  Coming  ! "  there  would  be 
one  of  his  fellows  behind  every  neighboring  tree  trunk  and  bowlder. 

Other  games  they  often  played  were  bliiidman's-buff,  tag,  hull- 
gull,  odd  or  even,  and   ball.     The  ball  would   be  a   home-made  affair, 


OLD  FASHIONED    SCHOOL    DAYS— WINTER. 


13 


of  old  stocking  ravclings  wound  together  and  covered  with  sheep- 
skin. The  ckib  would  be  a  round  stick  selected  from  the  wood- 
pile. 

At  about  one  o'clock  the  rattling  of  the  teacher's  ruler  on  the 
clapboards  of  the  schoolhouse  brought  the  scholars  in,  and  work  was 
resumed.  Spelling,  reading,  and  writing  were  gone  through  with 
again.  The  only  change  was  in  the  case  of  older  scholars,  who 
read  from  the  Testament  in  the  morning,  but  in  the  afternoon  used 
instead  a  book  of  prose  and  verse  selections  called  The  Art  of 
Reading. 

As  the  day  wore  on  it  grew  colder;  the  wind  came  up  and  rat- 
tled the  loose  clapboards,  and  whistled  about  the  eaves  and  chim- 
ney-mouth, and  made  the  branches  of  the  trees  back  of  the  school- 
house  sway  and  shiver.  Winter  seemed  to  have  pounced  upon  them 
all  at  once,  and  the  Indian  summer,  which  had  held  on  this  year 
longer  than  usual,  came  to  a  sudden  end.  A  good  deal  of  air  came 
in  at  the  cracks  of  the  little  building,  and  the  master  found  it  neces- 
sary to  pile  the  wood  on  the  fire  more  and  more  frequently.  Now 
and  then  one  of  the  big  boys  would  be  sent  out  in  the  yard  for  a 
fresh  armful  of  the  three-foot  sticks.  He  would  set  them  up  against 
the  wall  next  the  fireplace,  where  the  flames  were  dancing  and 
making  mad  leaps  up  the  chimney,  as  if  anxious  to  join  the  tumult 
of  the  wind  outside. 

Just  after  recess  one  of  the  boys  said  all  the  cut  wood  in  the 
yard  was  gone.  Jonas  Bird,  whose  duty  it  had  been  to  furnish  a 
supply  for  the  day,  had  not  calculated  on  such  cold  weather,  and 
the  master  had  to  call  on   two  of  the  big  boys  to  go  out  and  cut 


14 


THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL. 


more.  To  be  sure,  there  was  a  small  store  of  wood  ready  cut  in 
the  entry,  but  that  was  reserved  for  an  emergency.  A  little  before 
school  closed  the  master  asked,  "  Who  is  going  to  make  the  fire  in 
the  morning?"  and  Willie  Smith  said  it  was  his  turn,  but  he  had  an 
errand  to  do,  and  he  didn't  believe  he  could  get  there  in  time.  Jonas 
Bird  then  said  he  would  make  it  again.  The  question,  who  should 
chop  the  wood  and  build  the  fire  for  the  next  day,  was  one  which 
had  to  be  decided  each  afternoon. 

When  the  school  was  ready  to  close  the  teacher  appointed  one 
of  the  girls  to  get  her  mates'  things  from  the  closet  and  pass  them 
around.  As  soon  as  the  girls  had  pinned  the  little  blankets  over  their 
heads  and  put  on  their  mittens,  the  whole  school  rose,  and  one  by 
one,  beginning  with  the  smallest  children,  they  were  dismissed. 
Each  paused  at  the  door,  and  turned  toward  the  teacher  and  "  made 
his  or  her  manners." 

Once  outdoors,  the  scholars  separated,  some  to  go  up  the  road, 
some  down,  while  three  or  four  cut  across  lots  home.  Betsey  had 
company  about  half  way  ;  then  the  road  divided,  and  she  went  on 
alone.  The  sky  had  grayed  over,  and  the  sun,  dully  glaring  in  the 
haze,  was  just  sinking  behind  a  western  hilltop.  The  wind  was  blow- 
ing sharply,  and  the  leaves  were  rustling  along  the  frozen  earth  trying 
to  find  some  quiet  nook  or  hollow  to  hide  in.  The  little  girl  bent 
her  head  and  pushed  on  against  the  wind,  even  humming  a  little  to 
herself,  and  seemed  not  at  all  to  mind  the  roughness  of  the  weather. 

Nevertheless,  she  was  glad  to  get  home,  and  to  stand  and  rub  her 
hands  before  the  fire  snapping  and  blazing  in  the  big  fireplace. 

Just    before  going   to   bed,  Mr.  Hall   put   his  head  out  of  the  door 


OLD-FASHIONED   SCHOOL   DAYS— WINTER. 


15 


to  see  what  the  weather  prospects  were.  The  wind  had  gone  down 
a  Httle,  but  it  was  snowing.  "  Waal,"  he  said,  "  1  thought  'twould 
snow  before  morning,  but  I  didn't  s'pose  'twould  begin  so  (juick.  I 
declare,  it's  coming  down  considerable  thick,  too."  He  withdrew  his 
head,  brushed  a  few  white  flakes  from  his  hair,  and  stood  some  min- 
utes by  the  fire  warming  himself.  Then  he  shoveled  the  ashes  over 
the  coals  and  went  to  bed. 


The  road  to  learning. 

The  storm  proved  an  unusually  heavy  one.  At  daylight  on  the 
morrow  the  air  was  still  full  of  the  falling  flakes,  but  the  storm 
slackened  presently,  and  by  breakfast  time  it  had  stopped  snowing. 
The  brown  fields  had  been  deep  buried  in  their  winter  mantle,  and 
there  were  big  drifts  in  the  road. 

Betsey  went  to  school  that  day  on  an  ox  sled.  She  started 
directly  after  breakfast,  as  the  sled  was  to  collect  all  the  other 
scholars  who  lived  along  the  way,  and  there  were  drifts  which  must 
be  shoveled  out.     Her  father  and  three  big  brothers  went  too,  and 


l6  THE   COUNTRY   SCHOOL. 

shouted  at  the  oxen  as  they  plodded  along  the  roadway,  with  a 
pause  now  and  then  when  they  found  the  road  blocked  l)y  a  drift 
which  required  shoveling.  They  picked  up  other  children,  and 
presently  had  a  sled  full,  some  clinging  to  the  stakes  along  the 
sides,  others  sitting  on  the  bottom,  all  shouting,  or  stamping,  or 
pelting  the  oxen,  and  having  a  great  frolic. 

Some  time  before  this  Jonas  Bird  had  ploughed  his  way  through 
the  snow  to  the  schoolhouse.  He  wished  Willie  Smith  had  made  his 
own  fire  that  morning.  However,  there  was  no  helping  the  matter. 
He  stamped  the  snow  from  his  boots  on  the  door-sill  and  carried 
in  the  kindlings  from  the  entry ;  but,  to  his  dismay,  he  found  no 
coals  among  the  ashes — naught  but  a  few  sparks,  which  at  once 
flashed  out.  Jonas  felt  that  his  life  was  a  hard  one.  It  was  before 
the  time  of  matches,  and  he  must  go  to  a  neighbor's  and  borrow 
some  fire.  He  pulled  off"  a  broad  strip  of  green  hemlock  bark  from 
a  log  in  the  yard,  and  kicked  along  through  the  snow  to  the  near- 
est house,  where  he  was  made  welcome  to  all  the  coals  he  wanted. 
He  wrapped  several  in  the  green  bark,  and  returned. 

When  he  had  deposited  the  coals  in  the  fireplace  and  piled  the 
kindlings  on  top,  he  got  down  on  his  hands  and  knees,  and,  by  blow- 
ing lustily,  fanned  the  coals  into  a  blaze ;  and  when  the  fire  was  well 
started  he  went  out  and  cleared  a  little  space  next  the  woodpile. 
There  he  was  chopping  when  Betsey  and  the  children  with  her  came 
up  on  the  ox  sled.  Another  sled-load  soon  arrived  from  the  oppo- 
site direction,  and  the  scholars  were  all  there. 

They  tramped  around  in  the  snow  till  the  ox  teams  left,  and 
then  went    indoors    and    crowded    about    the    fire.     Soon    afterward 


OLD-FASHIONED   SCHOOL    DAYS-WINTER. 


the  master  came,  and  school  began.  This  clay  was  much  like  the 
day  before,  except  that  they  had  a  shorter  nooning,  because  in  the 
snow  they  could  not  well  play  out  of  doors,  and  school  closed 
earlier.  The  short  noonings  and  early  closing  were  continued 
through  the  term. 

Winter  had  now  fairly  begun.  In  spite  of  the  cold  and  the  bad 
traveling,  the  scholars  were  quite  regular  in  attendance.  They,  for 
the  most  part,  walked  back  and  forth,  rarely  getting  a  ride,  except 
when,  after  a  storm,  the  roads  had  to  be  broken  out.  The  brook, 
these  winter  days,  was  frozen  and  snow-covered,  and  the  children, 
when  thirsty,  would  hold  a  snowball  in  their  hands  till  it  became 
water-soaked,  and  then  suck  it.     They  did  not  care  to  play  out  of 


4 


PI'" 


%^ 


,8  THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL. 

doors  much,  though  at  times  some  of  the  older  boys  and  girls  would 
go  out  and  snowball,  or  start  a  game  of  "  fox  and  geese."  The  girls 
were  kept  in  more  than  the  boys  because  of  their  skirts,  which  easily 
became  wet  and  frozen  in  the  snow,  and  also  on  account  of  their 
shoes,  which  only  came  ankle  high,  and  had  a  tendency  to  fill  with 
snow  at  the  sides.  They  had  no  leggings,  but  when  the  roads 
were  worst  would  perhaps  pull  on  a  pair  of  old  stockings  over  their 
shoes. 

School  kept  every  day  in  the  week  except  Sunday,  and  there 
was  no  pause  at  Christmas,  or  New  Years,  or  Washington's  Birth- 
day, for  none  of  these  days  were  made  much  of  at  that  time.  If 
the  teacher  was  sick,  or  for  some  other  reason  lost  a  day,  he  would 
make  it  up  at  the  end  of  the  term.  Thus  it  happened  that  the  "  last 
day"  varied  from  Monday  to  Saturday.  What  was  done  on  last  day 
will  be  told  in  the  next  chapter. 


SUMMER. 

The  summer  term  began  the  first  Monday  in  May.  In  various 
ways  it  was  different  from  the  winter  term.  The  teacher  was  not  a 
man  this  time,  but  a  young  woman.  There  were  fewer  scholars,  as 
the  big  boys  were  kept  out  to  work  on  the  farm  ;  but  Betsey  Hall 
came  trudging  over  from  the  farm  each  day  with  her  dinner  basket 
on  her  arm.  Something  besides  food  was  in  the  basket  now — that  is, 
.sewing  ;  for  this  was  one  thing  taught  in  summer. 

Instead    of  the   little   white   blanket  which    Betsey  had  worn   in 


OLD-FASHIONED   SCHOOL  DAYS-SUMMER.  I^ 

winter  for  a  head  eoveriiii^,  she  now  liad  a  sunhonnet  made  of 
copperas-colored  cotton  cloth  over  pasteboard.  This  pasteboard  had 
been  made  at  home  by  pastin^r  a  lot  of  old  newspapers  together,  and 
it  was  apt  to  be  rather  limpsey.  Her  dress  was  of  cotton,  woven  at 
home,  in  blue  and  white  stripes,  and  very  simple  in  its  make-up. 
There  were  no  buttons  on  it,  and  its  only  fastening  was  a  cord  at 
the  neck.  She  wore  shoes  and  stockings  to-day,  but  later,  when  it 
was  a  little  warmer,  she  went  barefoot. 

Inside,  the  schoolroom  had  been  trimmed  with  evergreens,  and 
the  wide  mouth  of  the  fireplace  had  been  filled  with  boughs  of  pine 
and  laurel. 

The  teacher  had  a  pair  of  scissors  dangling  from  her  belt  and  used 
them  to  point  out  the  letters  in  the  Speller  when  the  A-B-C  class 
gathered  about  her.  A  good  many  small  children  came  in  summer 
who  could  not  get  to  school  during  the  cold  weather — occasionally 
one  not  over  three  years  old.  Such  a  httle  fellow  would  very  likely 
get  to  sleep,  and  the  teacher  would  pick  him  up  and  carry  him  to  the 
closet,  where,  on  the  bench  with  the  girls'  dinner  baskets,  he  would 
have  his  nap  out.  By  and  by  he  would  emerge  and  toddle  to  his 
place,  quite  bright  after  his  sleep. 

Most  of  the  little  ones  were  dismissed  early,  and  those  who  could 
handle  a  needle  brought  patchwork,  and  so  had  a  much  more  com- 
fortable time  of  it  than  in  winter. 

Older  scholars,  besides  patchwork,  would  bring  towels  and  table- 
cloths to  hem.  Some  of  them  worked  sanijilers.  Betsev  made  quite 
a  large  sampler  this  term — fourteen  by  twenty  inches.  It  was  on 
green  canvas,  and   the  stitches  were  taken  with  yellow  and  red  silk. 


20  THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL. 

First  a  checked  border  was  made,  then  the  al|)habet  in  small  letters 
was  worked  in  across  the  top,  next  the  fitjures  and  capitals,  and  under 
that  a  Scripture  verse,  "  Remember  thy  Creator  in  the  days  of  thy 
youth."  Below  that  came  her  name  and  age,  and,  at  the  bottom, 
flowers  in  a  flower-pot,  a  small  tree,  a  lamb,  a  dog,  and  a  lion. 

These  samplers,  when  elaborate,  were  often  framed,  as  was  this 
one  of  Betsey's,  which,  after  the  school  closed,  was  hung  at  home  in 
the  "  best  room  " — that  is,  the  parlor.  As  they  had  no  indelible  ink, 
all  the  clothing  had  to  be  marked  by  stitching,  and  the  sampler 
showed  how  to  make  the  letters. 

This  term  school  closed  every  other  Saturday.  In  most  towns, 
when  they  began  to  shorten  the  number  of  school  days  in  a  week, 
they  took  off  first  Saturday  afternoon  ;  but  here  the  scholars  had  to 
come  so  far  that  it  was  thought  best  to  give  them  a  whole  day  every 
other  week.  On  Friday  or  Saturday  afternoon,  whichever  happened 
to  be  the  last  afternoon  of  the  school  week,  the  children  studied  the 
Catechism.  It  was  a  thin  little  book,  divided  into  two  parts.  Part 
First  was  headed  Historical;  Part  Second  was  the  Assembly  Cate- 
chism. The  historical  part  had  nearly  two  hundred  questions  and 
answers,  and  at  the  top  of  each  page  were  two  small  square  pictures 
portraying  some  Bible  scene,  and  below  each  was  a  reference  to  the 
story  it  illustrated. 

Part  Second  had  in  it  one  hundred  and  seven  questions,  largely 
doctrinal,  beginning  with  "  What  is  the  chief  end  of  man  ?" 

Once  a  year,  extending  over  three  Sundays,  the  children  said  the 
Assembly  Catechism  in  church.  Just  after  the  sermon,  the  boys  on 
one  side,  the  girls  on  the  other,  they  formed  in  long  parallel  lines  in 


OLD-FASHIONED   SCHOOL    DAYS— SUiNLMER.  2  1 

the  middle  aisle,  faeing  each  other,  all  very  prim  and  scjlemn  and 
scared.  The  minister  came  down  from  the  pulpit,  overhung  by  the 
big  sounding-board,  and  took  his  place  in  the  deacons'  seat,  which 
ran  along  the  front  of  the  pulpit,     ^ihc  minister  put  the  questions 


ll't'ri-   /,)/■  //it'  /h>y  aftei   school. 


and  the  children  answered  in  turn.  First  a  boy,  then  a  girl,  would 
step  forth  from  the  lines,  face  the  questioner,  and  give  the  answer^ 
and  so  it  went  down  to  the  last  little  girl,  whose  frightened  murmur 
as  she  responded  could  scarce  be  heard  a  yard  away. 

On  the  first  Sunday  the  children  answered  as  far  as  the  command- 
ments— forty-four  questions ;  the  second  Sunday,  through  the  com- 
mandments to  the  eighty-first  question  ;  and  the  third  time  finished 
the  book.  Only  those  stood  who  could  answer,  and  while  the  first 
day  saw  quite  a  crowd  of  children  before  the  pulpit,  on  the  last  the 
answers  had  become  so  difficult  that  only  a  few  of  the  older  ones 
remained. 


22  THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL. 

There  were  five  days  in  the  year  which  were  recognized  as  holi- 
days:  Fast  Day,  Independence  Day,  Training  Day,  Election  Day, 
and  Thanksgiving  Day,  The  second  was  the  only  one  which  came 
within  the  bounds  of  either  school  term.  It  was  celebrated  rather 
quietly,  and  for  the  children  was  not  especially  different  from  any 
other  week  day  when  school  did  not  keep,  except  that  less  work  was 
given  them  to  do.  They  had  no  torpedoes,  firecrackers,  or  toy  pistols, 
and  they  made  little  noise. 

Through  all  the  hot  weather,  until  the  summer  was  nearly  at  an 
end,  the  school  continued  in  session.  On  warm  days  the  question, 
"  Please,  marm,  may  I  go  down  and  get  a  drink  } "  was  a  frequent 
one,  and  almost  all  day  one  or  another  of  the  children  could  be  seen 
on  their  way  to  and  from  the  pasture  hollow  where  the  brook  ran. 
They  had  no  cup  to  drink  from,  unless  they  shaped  a  big  leaf  for  the 
purpose.  Usually  they  would  kneel  down  on  the  stones  and  dif) 
their  lips  into  the  stream,  and  with  none  of  the  fear,  which  might 
disturb  the  moderns,  of  swallowing  water  snakes,  frogs,  pollywogs, 
or  like  creatures  that  were  possibly  swimming  there. 

The  teacher  often  allowed  some  of  the  scholars  to  go  out  and 
study  under  the  trees  "when  they  were  good."  Betsey  often  sat 
Under  the  beeches  in  the  grove  behind  the  schoolhouse  with  book 
in  hand.  But  it  was  harder  to  study  there  than  indoors,  there 
were  so  many  things  about  to  see.  The  temptation  was  to  fall  to 
dreaming,  to  watch  the  leaves  fluttering  above  her  head,  to  listen 
to  the  wind  whispering  through  the  boughs  and  to  the  faint  murmur 
of  the  brook  from  the  pasture  hollow,  to  watch  a  wandering  butter- 
fly, the   S(|uirrels  in   the  trees,  the   birds,  and   the   ants  journeying  up 


V'^IV^ 


OLD-FASHIONED   SCHOOL    DAYS— SUMMER.  23 

and  down  the  gray  trunk  at  her  back.  Still  it  was  very  pleasant, 
and  she  went  out  as  often  as  the  teacher  would  let  her. 

The  teachers  were  all  quite  strict  and  allowed  small  liberty,  and 
their  punishments  for  little  misdemeanors  were  often  severe.  None 
of  the  teachers  Betsey  went  to,  however,  were  very  harsh.  Once,  for 
making  too  much  noise,  she  had  to  stand  on  the  floor  with  her  hands 
tied  behind  her ;  and  again,  for  whispering,  had  to  sit  beside  a  great, 
coarse  boy.  These  were  the  only  serious  punishments  she  ever  re- 
ceived. 

One  winter  term  two  of  the  big  girls  persisted  in  looking  out  of 
the  window,  and  Betsey  was  quite  frightened  when  the  master  shook 
a  warning  finger  at  them  and  said  he  would  put  them  out  through 
the  window  if  they  looked  again.  This  teacher  chewed  tobacco,  and 
had  an  odd  way  of  holding  his  quid  between  his  lower  lip  and  teeth, 
making  a  queer  lump  on  his  chin.  The  two  big  girls  took  revenge 
on  him  by  rolling  up  wads  of  paper  and  imitating  the  master  with  his 
quid,  and  he  could  not  very  well  punish  them  without  making  him- 
self ridiculous.     The  commonest  form  of  punishment  was  feruling. 

The  woman  teacher  was  addressed  as  "  Marm."  When  a  scholar 
wished  to  speak  to  her  he  would  not  raise  his  hand  to  attract  her 
attention,  but  would  either  go  to  her  or  speak  right  out.  At  close 
of  school,  as  they  passed  out  of  the  door,  the  boys  turned  to  the 
teacher,  hats  in  hand,  and  bowed,  and  the  girls  courtesied,  and  each 
said  "  Good  afternoon,  marm."  The  children  liked  also  to  make  their 
manners  when  they  met  some  one  on  the  road.  Sometimes  several 
of  the  little  girls  would  join  hands  and  stand  by  the  roadside  and 
make   their  manners   to  a  person  passing,  and   then,  if  that  person 


24 


THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL. 


smiled  down  on  them  and  said,  "Nice  children,"  they  were  much 
pleased. 

In  summer,  as  in  winter,  the  teacher  boarded  around.  She  was 
pretty  sure  to  be  young,  usually  taught  a  few  years,  then  married, 
and  taught  no  more.  Her  pay  was  from  a  dollar  to  a  dollar  and 
seventy-five  cents  a  week. 

As  the  term  drew  to  a  close  the  scholars  began  to  learn  "pieces" 
to  speak  on  last  day.     A  good  many  learned  hymns.     Betty  studied 


this  term  a  little  poem   of  Mrs.  Barbauld's  called  The  Rose.     They 
did  not  write  compositions. 

Last  day  came  this  time  on  Thursday,  in  the  middle  of  August. 
The  sun  rose  clear  and  warm,  the  air  was  heavy  and  still,  and  it 
promised  to   be   hot.     All   the  children  came  dressed  in  their  best, 


OLD-FASHIONEU    SCHOOL    DAYS— SUMMER. 


25 


which  made  it  seem  Hke  Sunday,  and  lent  to  the  feehng  of  strange- 
ness and  excitement  which  overhung  the  great  occasion. 

Betsey  started  at  about  the  usual  time,  but  carried  to-day,  besides 
her  dinner  basket,  her  best  shoes  and  stockings  in  her  hand,  for  she 
must  keep  them  from  the  dew  which  dampened  the  grass  and  from 
the  dust  of  the  roadway.  As  she  walked  along  she  repeated  over  and 
over  aloud  the  poem  she  was  to  recite  in  the  afternoon.  When  she 
got  to  the  schoolhouse  she  wiped  her  feet  on  the  wet  grass  and  put 
on  her  shoes  and  stockings. 

The  morning  session  was  short,  and  mostly  occupied  by  review- 
ing for  the  exercises  of  the  afternoon.  Those  scholars  who  lived  near 
enough  then  ran  home,  and  the  rest  went  to  the  nearest  neighbor's 
and  borrowed  chairs,  with  which  they  filled  the  open  space  back 
of  the  teacher's  desk.  On  the  day  before  they  had  given  the  room 
a  great  sweeping  and  scrubbing,  and  had  torn  down  the  dry  ever- 
greens from  the  fireplace  and  about  the  windows  and  replaced  them 
with  fresh.  Now  they  put  finishing  touches  to  the  trim,  did  various 
little  things,  and  finally  were  ready  to  eat  dinner.  Meantime  great 
clouds  had  gathered  in  the  west  and  had  rolled  up  across  the  sky, 
and  now  the  first  big,  threatening  drops  of  the  shower  came  pelt- 
ing down.  The  children  were  obliged  to  eat  their  dinners  indoors, 
and  it  was  a  mournful  little  company  that  gathered  at  the  windows, 
as  the  storm  increased,  to  munch  their  bread  and  butter  and  watch 
the  lightning  flash  and  the  sheets  of  rain  drive  past. 

But  just  as  they  had  concluded  that  "  Last  day "  was  spoiled, 
the    storm    suddenly    ceased,    and    the    water-drops    clinging   to    the 

leaves  and  grasses  were  set  to  -dancing  in  the  breeze  that  blew,  and 

5 


26  THE    COUNTRY   SCHOOL. 

sparkled  in  the  sunlight,  while  the  big  thunderheads  sank  behind 
the  eastern  hilltops.  Then  the  scholars  thought  nothing  could  have 
happened  better. 

Those  that  had  gone  home  returned,  and  presently  school  com- 
menced. The  visitors  began  to  arrive  soon,  and  the  room  was 
pretty  well  crowded.  The  fathers  and  mothers  were  there,  and 
some  of  the  older  brothers  and  sisters ;  but  the  two  persons  of  most 
importance  were  the  "  school  committee-man "  and  the  minister. 
There  was  one  school  committee-man  in  each  district,  whose  duty 
it  was  to  hire  the  teacher,  to  see  that  the  schoolhouse  was  kept  in 
repair,  and  attend  to  like  matters.  The  scholars  were  quite  awe- 
struck by  the  presence  of  so  many  of  their  elders,  and  felt  they 
must  behave  their  best,  and  their  hearts  beat  fast  at  the  thought  of 
saying  their  lessons  before  so  many. 

First,  the  little  ones  were  called  out  on  the  floor  to  recite. 
They  said  the  letters,  spelled  a  few  short  words,  counted  a  little, 
answered  a  few  of  the  first  questions  in  the  Primer,  and  some  of 
the  first  questions  in  the  Catechism.  Then  the  teacher  asked  a 
list  of  questions  about  Bible  characters,  of  which  the  following  is  a 
part  :  "  Who  was  the  strongest  man  }  Who  was  the  meekest  man  .? 
Who  was  the  wisest  man  }  Who  was  the  most  patient  man  } " 
Lastly,  they  were  asked  what  town  they  lived  in,  the  name  of  the 
minister,  what  State  they  lived  in,  the  name  of  the  Governor,  what 
country  they  lived  in,  and  the  name  of  the   President. 

The  next  class,  besides  reading  and  spelling  and  a  few  simple 
exercises  in  arithmetic,  gave  the  abbreviations  and  the  Roman  nu- 
merals. 


OLU-FASHIONED   SCHOOL    DAYS— SUMMER. 


27 


The  oldest  scholars,  after  reading  and  spelling,  recited  what  they 
had  learned  of  the  multiplication  table,  and  gave  the  sounds  of  the 
letters,  each  reciting  in  turn,  tlerc  is  the  way  it  began  :  "  Long  a, 
name,  lake ;  long  e,  here,  feet ;  long  i,  time,  find  ;  long  o,  note,  fort  ; 


long  u,  tune,  gun  ;  long  y,  dry,  defy.  Short  a,  man,  hat.  Rroad 
a,  ball,  tall.  Flat  a,  ask,  part.  Diphthongs,  o-i,  o-y,  voice,  joy  ;  o-u, 
o-w,  loud,  now.  B  has  only  one  sound,  as  in  bite.  C  is  always 
sounded  like  k  or  s,  thus  :  c-a,  ca  ;  c-e,  ce ;  c-i,  ci  ;  c-o,  co  ;  c-u,  cu  ; 
c-y,  cy."  So  they  would  rattle  it  off  to  the  end  of  the  alphabet. 
Another  thing  the  older  scholars  learned  in  school  and  recited  last 
day  was  the  names  of  the  books  in  the   Bible. 

After  this  class  finished,  the  children  were  called  upon  to  speak 
their  pieces.     One  after  another  the  larger  ones  came  out  before  the 


28  THE    COUNTRY   SCHOOL. 

company  and  said  the  little  hymns  and  poems  they  had  learned. 
The  boys  bowed  and  the  girls  courtesied,  once  when  they  began  and 
again  when  they  finished. 

The  teacher  had  made  a  rose  of  thin  paper  for  Betty  to  hold 
while  she  spoke  her  piece,  but,  though  she  held  it  in  her  hand,  in  her 
excitement  she  forgot  all  about  it.  However,  she  spoke  the  piece 
very  prettily. 

Meantime  the  writing  books  and  the  ciphering  books  and 
samplers  had  been  passing  from  hand  to  hand  among  the  visitors, 
who  examined  them  with  considerable  care.  Now  the  teacher  turned 
to  the  visitors,  and  said  if  there  were  any  remarks  to  be  made  they 
would  be  glad  to  hear  them.  Three  or  four  of  the  men  got  up  one 
after  the  other,  and  each  said  he  had  been  much  pleased  with  the 
exercises.  One  man  said,  "  Vou  are  nice  children  ;  you  done  well." 
Another  said,  "  You  have  answered  some  questions  which  I  presume 
some  of  us  older  people  present  couldn't  have  answered." 

Lastly  the  minister  rose.  Save  his  mild  voice  all  was  very  quiet 
in  the  little  room.  The  children  with  folded  hands  sat  listening,  and 
the  older  people  were  attentive  too.  Through  the  open  windows 
the  wind  came  in  a  gentle  current.  Outside  a  multitude  of  insects 
mingled  their  voices  in  a  continuous  niurmur,  but  among  them,  at 
intervals,  came  the  strident,  long-drawn  note  of  a  Cicada.  The  breeze 
made  a  light  fluttering  in  the  trees  behind  the  building,  and  there, 
too,  a  wood  bird  was  singing.  By  the  roadside  the  visitors'  teams 
were  hitched,  and,  as  the  minutes  drowsily  sped,  the  children  half 
consciously  heard  the  horses  stamping  and  nibbling  at  the  bushes. 

The  substance  of  the  minister's  remarks  was  that  thev  should  be 


OLD-FASHIONED   SCHOOL    DAYS-SUMMER.  29 

good  children,  should  mind  their  parents,  and  not  neglect  their  hooks 
in  vacation,  for,  while  "all  work  and  no  play  makes  Jack  a  dull  hoy," 
"all  play  and  no  work  makes  Jack  a  mere  toy."  At  the  close  of 
the  talk  all  bowed  their  heads,  and  the  minister  offered  prayer.  This 
ended  the  exercises  of  the  day,  and  the  visitors  passed  out. 

The  scholars  still  remained  seated.  It  was  the  custom  of  the 
woman  teacher,  at  the  close  of  her  term,  to  give  the  scholars  some 
little  present,  and  now  was  the  time  for  distribution.  The  eyes  of 
the  children  had  wandered  many  times  with  curious  interest  to  the 
little  package  which  had  lain  on  her  table  all  the  afternoon.  The 
gifts  it  contained  were  simple  and  inexpensive,  but  they  gave  a 
great  deal  of  pleasure.  Some  received  a  half  yard  of  bright-colored 
ribbon,  one  would  get  a  man  of  sugar,  another  a  more  substantial 
man  of  tin.  Again,  it  would  be  a  picture,  or  a  sugar  plum,  or  a  stick 
of  cinnamon,  or  a  tiny  illustrated  story  book  costing  a  cent  or  two. 

Then  each  scholar,  with  his  treasure,  gathered  up  his  books  and 
other  belongings  and  trudged  off  home.  Betsey  got  her  copy  book 
and  ciphering  book  and  sampler  from  among  those  which  had  been 
passed  about  to  show  the  visitors,  her  basket  and  bonnet  from  the 
closet,  her  Primer,  Speller,  Testament,  and  reading  book,  and  her 
quills,  plummet,  ruler,  and  ink  from  her  desk,  and,  thus  loaded,  passed 
through  the  schoolhouse  door.  Her  folks  had  come  over  with  a 
team  and  were  talking  with  some  of  the  neighbors.  She  climbed 
in,  and  soon  they  jogged  off  toward  home. 

Children  and  visitors  had  all  gone.  Only  the  teacher  remained. 
She  had  closed  the  windows,  and  now  sat  with  her  elbow  on  the 
table    and    her    head    on    her    hand.     Through    the    door   came    the 


30 


THE    COUNTRY   SCHOOL. 


murmurous  voices  of  the  insects,  the  faint  ripple  of  the  brook  over  its 
stones  in  the  pasture,  the  dull  tinkle  of  a  cowbell  far  off. 

In  time  a  team  came  rattling  along  the  highway  and  stopped 
before  the  schoolhouse.  The  teacher  rose  quickly,  gathered  up  her 
few  things,  and  went  out.  She  lived  six  miles  distant,  and  was  now 
going  home.  Her  father  had  driven  over  to  visit  the  school,  and  had 
just  been  to  her  last  boarding  place  to  get  the  little  hair  trunk  which 
was  in  the  back  part  of  the  wagon.  The  teacher  got  in,  the  man 
clucked  to  the  horse,  and  with  the  sun  low  in  the  western  haze  full 
in  their  faces,  they  followed  the  road  along  the  level,  and  by  its  wind- 
ing, bush-lined  course  were  soon  hidden  to  view. 


The  teacher  going  home. 


THE   MID-CENTURY   SCHOOLS, 


^o-I85o. 


N  times  of  peace  the  changes  wrought 
in  the  habits,  manners,  and  institutions 
of  a  people  are  very  gradual.  Shreds 
and  remnants  of  every  custom  which 
has  had  general  acceptance  linger  long 
after  that  custom  has  in  most  quarters 
disappeared.  In  describing  the  New 
England  school  of  the  period  just  pre- 
ceding the  war  of  the  rebellion,  it  is  to 
be  noted  that  in  many  communities 
there  was  little  or  no  change  from  the 
schools  of  half  a  century  before.  What 
A  uiinur  morning.  jg  \\QXQ  rccouutcd    is  fairly  characteristic 

of  the  majority  of  schools  and  neighborhoods,  but  it  will  not    bear 
a  too  literal  application  to  particular  towns  and  villages. 

The  school  year  still  consisted  of  two  terms,  one  in  summer  and 
the  other  in  winter.  As  a  rule,  a  man  taught  in  winter  and  a  woman 
in  summer,  and  the  teachers  "  boarded  round."  The  custom  of  board- 
ing round  was,  however,  less  universal  than  formerly,  and  was  gradu- 
ally falling  into    disuse.     Schoolbooks  were    becoming    more  varied 


32 


THE    COUNTRY   SCHOOL. 


and  numerous,  and  were  less  stilted  in  style  than  in  times  past.  Nor 
were  they  so  solemnly  religious  as  they  had  been.  Instead,  the 
books  were  inclined  to  be  gently  moralizing,  and  never  told  a  story 
without  preaching  a  little  sermon  at  the  end,  even  if  they  did  not 
pause  now  and  then  midway  to  give  some  proper  advice. 

Perhaps  the  best  way  to  give  a  clear  idea  of  what  the  schools  of 
the  time  were  is  to  describe  a  typical  one  with  some  detail.  The 
school  I  have  in  mind  was  in  an  outlying  village  of  one  of  the  old 
Massachusetts  towns  of  the  Connecticut  Valley.  The  score  of  houses 
which  made  up  the  hamlet  were  scattered  along  a  two-mile  strip  of 
meadov/  land  which  lay  between  a  low  mountain  ridge  on  the  east 
and  the  river  on  the  west.  Midway  on  the  single  north  and  south 
road  stood  the  weather-worn  little  school  building.  A  narrow,  open 
yard,  worn  bare  of  grass  for  a  space  about  the  doorstep,  separated  it 
from  the  dusty  road.  At  one  end  of  the  building  a  big  apple  tree 
partly  shadowed  it ;  at  the  other  was  a  lean-to  shed  where  the  wood 
for  the  fire  was  stored. 

Within,  a  narrow  entry  ran  across  the  north  side,  complctelv  filled 
in  the  middle  by  a  great  chimney.  The  boys  kept  their  caps  and 
wraps  on  the  lines  of  pegs  in  the  front  entry,  and  in  a  closet  back  of 
the  chimney,  entered  from  the  schoolroom,  the  girls  kept  theirs. 

The  small,  square  main  room  had  bare,  plastered  walls  and  ceiling, 
grimy  with  smoke  and  age.  On  each  of  the  east,  south,  and  west 
sides  were  two  windows  which  looked  out  upon  the  meadows, 
orchards,  and  mountains.  The  chief  feature  of  the  north  side  of  the 
room  was  the  wide  fireplace  with  its  brick  hearth.  At  one  side  of 
the  fireplace  stood  a  broom,  and  whenever  the  crackling  fire  snapped 


THE    MID-CENTURY    SCHOOLS,   1840-1850, 


I'he  road  to  school. 


out  a  coal  on  the  floor  the  first  boy  who  saw  it  was  expected  to  jump 
up  and  brush  it  back.  It  was  not  always  that  the  scholars  would 
take  the  trouble  to  brush  the  coals  back  by  using  the  broom.  A 
quicker  method  was  to  crush  the  fire  out  by  stepping  on  it,  and 
the  boards  about  the  hearth  were  not  only  blackened  with  many  little 
hollows  where  the  coals  had  fallen,  but  were  also  usually  well  strewn 
with  the  powdered  charcoal  resulting  from  their  being  stepped  on. 
Another  feature  of  the  north  side  of  the  room  was  a  small  black- 
board between  the  fireplace  and  the  entrance,  on  which  the  big  boys 
did  their  sums. 

Around  the  other  three  sides  of  the  room,  against  the  wall,  ran  a 


3_|.  THE    COUNTRY   SCHOOL. 

continuous  desk,  accompanied  by  a  backless  bench  well  polished  with 
use.  To  get  to  their  places,  or  to  leave  them,  the  boys  would  sit 
down,  lift  their  heels,  and  with  a  quick  whirl  swing  them  to  the  other 
side.  The  girls  had  two  hinged  openings  in  this  seat  on  their  side 
of  the  room,  which  could  be  lifted  to  allow  them  to  pass  in  and  out, 
but  most  of  the  girls  preferred  to  whirl  as  the  boys  did.  A  part  of 
the  time  the  scholars  eased  themselves  of  the  discomfort  of  their 
backless  seats  by  turning  about  and  using  the  edge  of  the  desk  as  a 
support.  Within  the  hollow  square  bounded  by  this  outer  desk  and 
seat,  on  each  of  the  three  sides,  was  a  movable  bench  with  a  back  on 
which  the  smaller  children  sat  facing  the  teacher.  In  the  center  of 
the  room  was  the  teacher's  desk  and  a  single  stiflf-backed  wooden 
chair. 

The  chief  dignitary  of  the  village  was  the  "  prudential  committee- 
man." He  hired  the  teacher  ;  he  bought  the  water  pail,  the  dipper, 
and  the  broom  ;  and  he  saw  that  the  woodhouse  was  properly  filled 
and  the  premises  kept  in  repair.  His  position  was  not  what  the  poet 
calls  "  a  downy  bed  of  ease,"  for  he  was  the  subject  of  much  comment 
and  criticism.  It  was  thought  he  had  too  strong  a  tendency  to  hire 
one  of  his  own  daughters  when  he  possessed  an  unmarried  one 
sufficiently  advanced  in  age  and  learning ;  and,  wherever  the  selection 
was  made,  the  teacher  he  hired  frequently  failed  to  suit  the  com- 
munity. If,  in  such  a  case,  the  committee-man  took  sides  with  the 
teacher,  the  miniature  war  waxed  quite  fierce.  Upon  one  occasion, 
in  a  quarrel  over  a  teacher  whom  the  committee-man  would  not 
turn  off,  hostilities  were  more  than  a  year  in  duration.  All  but  six 
scholars  left  the  school,  and  the  dissenters  hired  a  teacher  and  had  a 


THE    MID-CENTURY    SCHOOLS.   1840-1S50.  35 

school  of  their  own  in  one  of  the  dissenting-  farmers'  little  out-build- 
ings which  had  been  used  as  a  broom  shop. 

It  was  the  duty  of  the  district  committee  to  go  after  the  teacher 
whom  he  hired,  if  that  person  lived  in  a  neighboring  town.  The 
committee-man  rarely  started  soon  enough  to  get  his  charge  to  the 
schoolroom  on  time;  and  the  scholars,  who  gathered  at  nine  o'clock, 
would  "train  around  and  have  a  gay  time"  while  they  awaited  the 
teacher's  arrival.  Sometimes  the  teacher,  before  beginning,  had  to 
be  taken  to  the  "examining  committee"  at  the  town  center  and  his 
or  her  qualifications  tested  by  sundry  questions.  In  such  a  case  the 
teacher  might  not  arrive  ready  for  duty  until  afternoon. 

We  will  suppose  that  the  first  week  in  May  has  come,  and  that 
the  district  committee-man  has  brought  the  new  schoolma^m.  The 
teacher,  he  takes  to  the  schoolhouse,  but  her  trunk  is  carried  to  the 
committee-man's  home,  where  it  is  to  stay  through  the  term.  She  is 
to  board  round,  and  it  has  already  been  decided  where  her  stopping 
place  for  the  first  week  shall  be.  Monday  noon  the  children  of  that 
particular  home  take  charge  of  her,  and  feel  it  a  great  honor  to  escort 
her  to  "  their  house  "  to  dinner.  The  teacher's  advent  into  a  family 
was  always  the  occasion  of  extra  preparation  in  the  way  of  food  and 
"  tidying  up,"  and  conversation  became  a  more  than  ordinarily  serious 
occupation. 

Boarding  round,  with  its  accompanying  necessity  of  "  visiting," 
change  of  quarters,  and  frequent  making  of  new  home  acquaintances, 
was  something  of  a  hardship.  The  teacher  found  her  quarters  far 
from  agreeable  at  times ;  but  there  was  no  picking  places.  The  best 
bedroom,  to  which  she  was  consigned,  was  perhaps  stuffy  with   the 


36 


THE    COUNTRY   SCHOOL. 


gathered   must   of  many   months'  unoccupancy,  or  the  people  were 
rough  and  slatternly   in  their  habits,  or  the  food  was  ill-cooked  or 


A   hillsidt-  schoolhoiisf. 

scanty.  I  do  not  mean  these  things  were  the  rule,  but  they  were 
to  the  boarder  round,  to  some  extent,  unavoidable. 

Schools  kept  from  Monday  morning  till  Saturday  noon.  On 
Saturday  afternoons  the  teacher  went  to  the  committee-man's  and 
did  her  washing.  She  stayed  over  Sunday  and  attended  church  with 
the  family.  Some  week-day  evening,  after  school,  she  would  prob- 
ably again  repair  to  the  committee-man's  to  do  her  ironing. 

In  winter  the  teacher  in  some  sections  found  himself  feasted  the 
whole  term  through  on  fresh  pork.  Fresh  pork  was  esteemed  one 
of  the  most  palatable  and  substantial  dishes  the  farm  produced,  and, 
on  the  principle  of  giving  the  teacher  the  best,  each  family  put  off 
hog-killing  until  he  came.  His  invitation,  delivered  by  the  chil- 
dren, would  be :  "  Our  folks  arc  goin'  to  butcher  next  week,  and 
want  you  to  come  there."     Or  an  excuse  would  come  in  this  form: 


THE    MID-CENTURY    SCHOOLS,   1840-1850.  37 

"  Our  folks  want  you  to  wait  till  week  after  next,  'cause  we're  goin' 
to  kill  a  pig  then."  The  master  was  heartily  sick  of  pork  long  be- 
fore the  winter  w^as  through. 

Immediately  after  the  morning  session  began  the  teacher  read  a 
selection  from  the  Testament  and  offered  a  short  extempore  prayer. 
Children  began  to  attend  school,  in  summer,  soon  after  they  passed 
their  third  birthday.  At  first  they  had  no  books,  and  their  chief 
effort  was  given  to  sitting  still.  They  were  taught  their  letters  at 
the  school-mistress's  knee,  and  perhaps  she  pointed  them  out  with 
a  pretty  penknife.  The  children  found  that  penknife  wonderfully 
attractive,  and  it  was  a  great  happiness  to  handle  it  and  look  at  it 
when  the  teacher  lent  it  to  them. 

Besides  the  letters,  the  teacher  taught  the  smallest  ones  various 
little  poems.  There  were  "  Mary  had  a  little  lamb,"  "  Twinkle,  twin- 
kle, little  star,"  and 


"  How  doth  the  little 
busy  bee 
Improve  each  shining 
hour." 

Then  there  were  cer- 
tain jingles,  which 
were  not  only  poetry, 
but  exercises  in  arith- 
metic as  well.  Fancy  a 
little  tot  solemnly  re- 
peating the  following ; 


Cubhy-hflust-  dolls. 


38  THE   COUNTRY   SCHOOL. 

"  See  me  ;  I  am  a  little  child 

Who  goes  each  day  to  school  ; 
And  though  I  am  but  four  years  old, 
I'll  prove  I  am  no  fool. 

"  For  I  can  count  one,  two,  three,   four, 
Say  one  and  two  make  three  ; 
Take  one  away,  and  two  remain. 
As  you  may  plainly  see. 

"  Twice  one  are  two,  twice  two  are  four, 
And  si.K  is  three  times  two  ; 
Twice  four  are  eight,   twice  five  are  ten  ; 
And  more  than   this  I  do. 

"  For  I  can   say  some  pretty   rhymes 
About  the  dog  and  cat ; 
And  sing  them  very  sweetly,  too, 
And  to  keep  time  I  spat. 

"And,  more  than  all,   I  learn  that  God 
Made  all  things  that  I  see ; 
He  made  the  earth,  he  made  the  sky. 
He  made  both  you  and  me." 

This  chant  was  accompanied  by  appropriate  gestures,  such  as  count- 
ing on  the  fingers,  pointing,  and  clapping. 

The  rhymes  and  verses  learned  by  the  children  were  often  re- 
peated in  concert,  and  were  one  of  the  features  of  "  examination 
day."  Besides  the  moralizing,  the  arithmetical,  and  the  story-telling 
verses,  the  children  were  taught  hymns  and  short  poems  that  were 
distinctly  religious  in  nature.  When  the  teacher's  taste  was  musical, 
they  had  singing  in  school,  and  the  virtues  of  the  "pure  and  spark- 
ling water"  were  extolled  in  temperance  songs. 


THE    MID-CENTURY    SCHOOLS,   1840^1850.  39 

By  the  time  the  snuillest  children  had  the  alphabet  learned  they 
were  supplied  with  a  Webster's  Speller.  Later  they  had  a  Child's 
Guide,  or  a  \'oun<i,-  Reader.  These  books  contained  some  little 
stories  and  poems,  and  were  illustrated  with  rude  woodcuts.  After 
the  First  Reader  the  child  advanced  to  an  Intelligent  Reader,  and 
finally  to  a  Rhetorical  Reader.  These  two  books  were  not  illus- 
trated. None  of  the  schoolbooks  had  pictures  on  the  covers,  as 
later  came  to  be  the  rule,  but  simply  a  stiff  type-lettering  displayed 
on  their  gray  or  buff  boards.  The  reading  books  were  only  used 
in  the  afternoon.  Instead,  there  were  several  classes  in  the  morn- 
ing which  read  from  the  New  Testament.  The  Gospels  and  the 
Acts  of  the  Apostles  were  the  sections  which  they  studied,  and 
these  they  read  straight  through,  skipping  nothing  but  the  first 
chapter  of  Matthew,  which  is  mainly  composed  of  the  hard  names 
of  the  patriarchs. 

The  first  book  in  mathematics  was  Colburn's  Intellectual  Arith- 
metic. Its  first  question  was,  "  How  many  thumbs  have  you  on 
both  hands  ? "  but  in  a  few  pages  fractions  were  reached,  and  quite 
intricate  problems.  It  was  severe  training,  and  the  scholars  all  hated 
their  Colburn's,  After  this  "  mental  arithmetic "  came  a  "  written 
arithmetic,"  which  was  apparently  supposed  by  educators  to  be  more 
difficult  than  the  former,  but  which  the  scholars  found  comparatively 
easy.     The  problems  in  this  they  did  on  their  slates. 

Modern  civilization  decrees  that  the  proper  way  to  make  era- 
sures from  a  slate  is  to  have  a  bottle  and  rag.  In  earlier  days,  and 
those  not  very  far  removed,  the  natural  method  was  almost  uni- 
versal ;    that    is,  the    scholar  spit  on   his  slate,  rubbed  the  moisture 


40  THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL. 

around  with  the  tips  of  his  fingers,  then  estabHshed  a  more  vigor- 
ous friction  with  the  ball  of  his  thumb,  and  finally  polished  his  slate 
off  with  the  back  of  his  sleeve.  That  done,  he  settled  himself  down 
to  conquer  fresh  fields  in  the  mathematical  world. 

In  the  course   of  time  the   children   began    the    study  of   Peter 
Parley's  Geography.     The  book  was  small  and  square,  and  it  had  a 


A   Saturday  holiday.     Eating  sassafras 


number  of  pictures  in  it  to  give  the  child  an  idea  of  some  of  the 
strange  peoples  and  curious  animals  that  are  to  be  found  on  the 
earth.  For  instance,  there  was  a  picture  of  a  Chinaman  with  which 
the  young  student  was  sure  to  be  imj^ressed.  His  eyes  were  slanting, 
his  hair  was  done  up  in  a  "  pigtail  "  that  hung  down  his  back,  he  had 
a  conical  hat  on  his  head  and  funny  shoes  on  his  feet.     Across  his 


THE    MID  CENTURY    SCHOOLS,   1840-1850.  4I 

shoulders  he  bore  a  wooden  yoke  from  tlie  ends  of  which  were  sus- 
pended by  their  tails  long  strings  of  rats.  How  could  they  eat  such 
things?  What  a  strange  people  the  Chinese  were!  Among  the 
small  separate  pictures  of  animals  was  one  of  the  hippoi)otanuis — oh  ! 
so  large  and  ugly  ! — and  one  of  the  rhinoceros  with  a  dreadful  horn 
right  on  his  nose.  It  is  no  wonder  if  the  little  girls  shuddered  when 
they  looked  at  them.  The  first  lesson  on  the  first  page  of  this 
geography  w^as  a  poem  which  started  in  these  words : 

"  The  world  is  round,  and,  like  a  ball, 
Seems  swinging  ni  the  air  ; 
The  sky  extends  around  it  all. 
And  stars  are  shining  there. 

"Water  and  land  upon  the  face 
Of  this  wide  world  we  see  ; 
Earth  is  the  dwelling  place  of  man, 
Ikit  ships  sail  on  the  sea." 

The  more  advanced  pupils  studied  Murray's  Grammar,  and  found 
out  what  nouns,  verbs,  etc.,  were,  and  learned  to  parse  blank  verse. 
Then  there  was  Peter  Parley's  History,  in  two  volumes.  Volume  I 
dealt  with  the  New  World,  and  Volume  H  began  with  Adam  and 
the  Garden  of  Eden,  and  told  the  story  of  the  Old  World.  Only  the 
first  book  was  usually  studied  in  the  district  school. 

Another  little  book  to  be  mentioned  was  Watts  on  the  Improve- 
ment of  the  Mind.  This  was  a  deep  and  serious  essay  on  the 
methods  and  the  desirability  of  mental  improvement.  It  was  studied 
by  only  the  oldest  scholars,  and  even  they  found  much   of  it   beyond 

their  comprehension. 

7 


42 


THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL. 


Lhniig  anthtni-lic  examples  on  the  blackboard. 


The  times  were  sufficiently  advanced  so  that  the  children  now 
had  "  boughten  writing  books "  instead  of  home-made  ones,  steel 
pens  instead  of  quills,  and  in  a  meager  way  pencils  instead  of 
plummets.  The  writing  books  were  square  in  shape,  ruled  inside,  but 
had  no  printed  copies  at  the  top  of  the  page.  These  the  master  had 
therefore  to  set.  He  was  supposed  to  do  this  each  night  after 
school,  but  if  he  forgot  it  he  had  to  set  the  copies  when  the  writing 
hour  came.  Some  pupils  wrote  faster  than  others,  and  the  smart  one 
who  filled  out  his  page  and  still  had  more  time  at  once  desired  to 
inform  the  teacher  of  his  progress  and  to  get  a  new  copy.  The  boy 
raised  his  hand,  therefore,  half  rose  in  his  seat,  and  nearly  wrung  his 
arm  off  in  a  frantic  effort  to  get  the  teacher's  immediate  attention. 


THE    MID-CENTURY    SCHOOLS,  1840-1850.  43 

Some  boys  would  even  snap  their  fingers,  and  clear  their  throats  in 
the  very  hoarsest  and  most  asthmatic  manner  of  which  they  were 
capable.  These  violent  methods  of  attracting  the  teacher's  attention 
were,  of  course,  not  confined  to  the  writing  lesson. 

A  common  requirement  among  teachers  was  that  each  scholar 
should  recite  a  verse  of  Scripture  at  the  close  of  the  afternoon  session. 
Hence,  when  four  o'clock  approached.  Bibles  were  forthdrawn,  and  a 
diligent  search  began  for  short  verses,  and  a  hasty  attempt  made  to 
fix  the  one  singled  out  in  the  mind.  There  was  little  solemnity 
about  this  exercise ;  rather,  it  was  farcical  and  humorous. 

"  John,  your  verse,"  says  the  teacher.  Up  pops  the  boy  like  a 
Jack-in-the-box,  snaps  out  "Jesus  wept,"  and  with  a  grin  drops  into 
his  seat  again. 

"  Pray  without  ceasing,"  "  Rejoice  evermore,"  "  The  Lord  spake 
unto  Moses,  saying,"  are  examples  of  the  verses  which  found  favor 
in  the  children's  minds.  They  had  the  merit  of  shortness,  if  no  other. 
The  boy  was  always  serious  when  he  rose,  always  rattled  off  the 
words  very  fast,  and  beamed  with  a  never-failing  smile  at  the  close  of 
his  performance. 

On  one  occasion  a  boy's  verse  ran,  "  With  God  all  things  are 
peculiar." 

•'  What  ?  "  said  the  teacher,  "  what  was  that  ? "  The  boy  repeated 
his  words.  The  teacher  doubted  their  authenticity,  and  the  boy,  on 
the  following  Sunday,  went  to  his  original  source,  which  was  a 
motto  hung  in  the  Sunday-school  room  at  church,  and  found  that 
the  ancient  text  lettering  had  confused  him.  What  it  really  said 
was,  "  With  God  all  things  are  possible." 


44 


THE   COUNTRY    SCHOOL. 


There  had  been  various  changes  in  dress  since  the  beginning  of 
the  century.  Homespun  had  almost  disappeared.  Not  many  fami- 
lies could  afford  to  buy  "  store  clothes  "  for  their  boys,  but  cloth  was 
bought  ready  woven,  and  was  cut  and  made  at  home  into  the  required 
garments.  Economy  was  studied  in  making  up  clothing,  and  the 
mother  was  careful  to  cut  the  suit  for  the  growing  boy  several  sizes 
larger  than  his  present  stature  demanded.  The  boy  had  reason  to 
complain  at  first  of  the  bagginess  of  his  garments,  but  before  they 
were  worn  out  he  was  pretty  sure  to  be  disturbed  because  of  their 
general  tightness  at  the  extremities.  But  this  was  the  common  lot 
of  boys,  and  they  might  count  themselves  lucky  if  they  were  clothed 
in  new  store  cloth,  and  not  in  something  made  over  from  the  cast-off 
apparel  of  their  elders. 

The  boys'  caps  were  homemade  too,  sometimes  of  broadcloth, 
sometimes  of  catskin  or  muskrat  skin.  Often  a  leather  visor  was 
fastened  on  in  front.  At  the  sides  were  earlaps  with  strings  at  the 
end.  When  in  use  the  strings  were  tied  under  the  chin  ;  at  other 
times  the  earlaps  were  turned  up  at  the  side  of  the  cap,  and  the 
strings  tied  over  the  top. 

Both  boys  and  girls  went  to  school  barefoot  in  summer,  but 
for  special  occasions  had  shoes.  On  the  approach  of  cold  weather 
the  boys  were  sure  to  remind  their  parents  that  they  needed  a  new 
pair  of  boots.  These  were  rough-looking  cowhides,  into  the  tops 
of  which  they  usually  tucked  their  "  pant  legs."  At  parties  or  other 
places  where  the  tucked-in  style  seemed  out  of  place,  the  pants  were 
drawn  down  on  the  outside  of  the  bootlegs,  where  thcv  showed  an 
irritating   and    uncontrollable  tendency  to  hitch  themselves  upward. 


THE    MID-CENTURY   SCHOOLS,   1840-1850. 


4S 


The  boots  were  hardly  wearable  unless  they  were  kept  well  greased, 
and  even  then  the  continual  slopping  around  in  snow  and  water 
made  a  series  of  hard  wrinkles  gather  at  the  ankles  that  were  par- 
ticularly unyielding  on  cold  mornings.  There  was  no  right  and  left 
nonsense  about  their  broad-soled,  square-toed  boots,  and  the  careful 
boy  took   pains    to   change  them  to   opposite   feet  with   regularity ; 


After  school. 

he  considered  that  the  only  way   to  keep  them  subdued  and  sym- 
metrical. 

The  girls'  dresses  were  of  gingham  in  summer  and  of  a  fine- 
checked  woolen  in  winter.  They  were  very  plain  and  simple  in 
pattern,  and  were  fastened  down  the  back  with  hooks  and  eyes. 
The  dresses  were  longer  than  are  now  in  use,  and  with  them  a 
curious  garment  known  as  "  pantalets "  was  worn.  A  pantalct  was 
like  a  straight  sleeve  fastened  at  the  knee  and  extending  downward 


46 


THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL. 


to  the  ankles.  In  warm  weather  the  girls  wore  gingham  or  colored 
calico  sunbonnets,  in  winter  quilted  hoods,  which  were  very  com- 
fortable, often  bright  in  color  and  gay  with  ribbons.  They  wore 
long  plaided  coats  that  almost  swept  the  ground,  with  a  wide  cape 
at  the  top.  The  boys  had  overcoats,  but  they  thought  them  effem- 
inate, and  only  wore  them  in  the  severest  weather.  Both  boys  and 
girls  had  striped  knitted  scarfs  to  wind  about  their  necks,  which 
they  called  "  comforters."  The  shoes  worn  by  the  girls  came  barely 
up  to  their  ankles,  and  vv^ere  slight  protection  in  snow-time.  Their 
feet  were  "  sopping "  in  winter  a  good  share  of  the  time,  say  those 
who  wore  them.  Every  child  had  a  pair  of  mittens,  usually  red. 
Through    the    summer    term    the    girls    wore    gingham    aprons,    or, 


y,/.w;/-   /// 


THE    MID-CENTURY    SCHOOLS.   i<S4c^i85o.  47 

in  the  case  of  one  or  two  families  esteemed  "rich,"  black  silk 
ones. 

Among  the  most  vivid  recollections  that  grown-up  people  have 
of  their  school  days  are  the  memories  of  the  punishments  inllieted. 
What  then  stirred  them  to  fear  and  trembling  and  anger  now  lies 
far  off,  mellowed  by  the  haze  of  passing  years,  and  though  the 
echoes  of  the  old  feelings  are  many  times  awakened,  in  the  main 
the  punishments  are  like  episodes  in  story-land,  which  we  think  of 
as  onlookers,  not  as  actors.  The  crude  roughness  and  the  startling 
effects  produced  have  lost  their  old-time  tragedy,  and  often  have 
turned  humorous. 

"  Spare  the  rod  and  spoil  the  child "  was  a  Bible  text  which 
received  the  most  literal  acceptance  both  in  theory  and  practice. 
Even  the  naturally  mild-tempered  man  was  an  "  old-fashioned  "  dis- 
ciplinarian when  it  came  to  teaching,  and  the  naturally  rough  and 
coarse-grained  man  was  as  frightful  as  any  ogre  in  a  fairy  tale. 

In  summer,  unless  the  teacher  was  an  uncommonly  poor  one, 
or  some  of  the  scholars  uncommonly  wild  and  mischievous,  the  days 
moved  along  very  harmoniously  and  pleasantly.  In  winter,  when 
the  big  boys  came  in,  some  of  them  men  grown,  who  cared  vastly 
more  about  having  a  good  time  than  getting  learning,  an  impor- 
tant requisite  of  the  master  was  "government."  He  ruled  his  little 
empire,  not  with  a  rod  of  iron,  but  with  a  stout  three-foot  ruler, 
known  as  a  "  ferule,"  which  was  quite  as  effective.  The  really 
severe  teacher  had  no  hesitation  in  throwing  this  ruler  at  any  child 
he  saw  misbehaving,  and  it  is  to  be  noted  that  he  threw  first  and 
spoke    afterward.      Very  likely  he  would  order  the  culprit  to  bring 


48  THE   COUNTRY   SCHOOL. 

him  the  ferule  he  had  cast  at  him,  and  when  the  boy  came  out  on 
the  floor  would  further  punish  him.  Punishment  by  spatting  the 
palm  of  the  hand  with  a  ruler  was  known  as  "  feruling."  The 
smarting  of  the  blows  was  severe  while  the  punishment  lasted,  but 
this  was  as  nothing  to  a  "  thrashing."  The  boy  to  be  thrashed  was 
himself  sent  for  the  apple-tree  twigs  with  which  he  v^as  to  be 
whipped.     Poor  fellow  !     Whimpering,  and   blinded  by  the  welling 


tears,  he  slowly  whittles  off  one  after  the  other  of  the  tough  twigs. 
This  task  done,  he  drags  his  unwilling  feet  back  to  the  schoolroom. 

"Take  off  your  coat,  sir!"  says  the  master. 

The  school  is  hushed  into  terrified  silence.  The  fire  crackles  in 
the  wide  fireplace,  the  wind  whistles  at  the  eaves,  the  boy's  tears 
flow  faster,  and  he  stammers  a  plea  for  mercy.  Then  the  whip 
hisses  through  the  air,  and  blows  fall  thick  and  fast.  The  boy 
dances  about  the  floor,  and   his  shrill  screams  fill  the  schoolroom. 


THE    MID-CENTURY    SCHOOLS,   1840-1850.  49 

His  mates  are  frightened  and  trembling,  and  the  girls  are  crying. 
When  the  sobbing  boy  is  sent  to  his  place,  whatever  his  misde- 
meanor may  have  been,  the  severity  of  the  punishment  has  won 
him  the  sympathy  of  the  whole  school,  and  toward  the  master  there 
are  only  feelings  of  fear  and  hate.  As  for  the  culprit,  he  in  his 
heart  vows  vengeance,  and  longs  for  the  day  when  he  shall  have 
the  age  and  stature  to  thrash  the  teacher  in  return. 

Doubtless  the  whippings  varied  much  in  severity,  and,  unless 
the  master  was  altogether  brutal  or  angered,  were  tempered  accord- 
ing to  the  size  of  the  boy  and  the  enormity  of  his  offense.  Nor 
were  the  boy's  cries  always  a  criterion  of  the  amount  of  the  hurt. 
It  was  manifestly  for  his  interest  to  appear  in  such  terrible  distress 
as  to  rouse  the  master's  pity,  and  with  this  in  mind  he  to  some 
extent  gauged  his  cries.  Nevertheless,  the  spectacle  was  not  an 
edifying  one,  and  happily  the  school  thrashing  as  a  method  of 
separating  the  chaff  from  the  wheat  in  boy  nature  is  a  thing  of 
the  past. 

The  list  of  milder  punishments  was  a  varied  one.  If  the  master 
saw  two  boys  whispering,  he  would,  if  circumstances  favored,  steal 
upon  them  from  behind  and  visit  unexpected  letribution  upon  them 
by  catching  them  by  the  collars  and  cracking  their  heads  together. 
Frequently  an  offender  was  ordered  out  on  the  floor  to  stand  for  a 
time  by  the  master's  desk,  or  he  was  sent  to  a  corner  wnth  his  face  to 
the  wall,  or  was  asked  to  stand  on  one  leg  for  a  time.  In  certain  cases 
he  was  made  to  hold  one  arm  out  at  right  angles  to  his  body — a  very 
easy  and  simple  thing  to  do  for  a  short  time,  but  fraught  with  pain- 
ful discomfort   if  long  continued.     Sometimes  the    punishment  was 


50 


THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL. 


made  doubly  hard  by  forcing  the  scholar  to  support  a  book  or  other 
weight  at  the  same  time.  When  the  arm  began  to  sag,  the  teacher 
would    inquire   with    feigned    solicitude  what  the    trouble  was,  and 


A  punishment. 

perhaps  would  give  him  a  rap  on  his  "  crazy  bone  "  with  the  ruler  to 
encourage  him  to  persevere.  This  process  soon  brought  a  child  to 
tears,  and  then  the  teacher  was  apt  to  relent  and  send  him  to  his 
seat. 

Making  a  girl  sit  with  the  boys,  or  a  boy  with  the  girls,  was 
another  punishment.  The  severity  of  this  depended  on  the  nature  of 
the  one  punished.  For  the  timid  and  bashful  it  was  a  terrible 
disgrace. 

Boxing  ears,  keeping  in  at  recess  or  after  school,  and  the  confisca- 
tion of  playthings  and  odds  and  ends  which  hindered  the  youthful 
mind  in  its  pursuit  of  knowledge,  were  mild  visitations  of  the  law 
that  only  need  mention.     Jackknives  frequently  figured  among  the 


THE    MID-CENTURY   SCHOOLS,   1840-1850.  5 1 

contraband  articles  locked  in  the  teacher's  desk  ;  for  what  boy  can 
behold  a  piece  of  soft  pine  wood  in  any  shape  whatever  without 
desiring  to  whittle  it  ?  The  desks  offered  an  inviting  surface  on 
which  the  boy  itched  to  carve  his  initials,  and  that  done,  he  was 
inspired  to  put  a  few  added  touches  and  simple  designs  on  the  rest  of 
the  space  within  reach.  While  the  teacher  stored  his  beloved  jack- 
knife  he  still  had  recourse  to  his  pencils,  and  with  these  could  make 
in  the  soft  wood  various  indentations  and  markings  pleasing  to  his 
soul. 

Some  of  the  punishments  produced  very  striking  spectacular 
effects  to  which  the  present-day  mind  would  feel  quite  averse. 
Fancy  the  sight  of  a  boy  and  girl  guilty  of  some  misdemeanor 
standing  in  the  teacher's  heavy  armchair,  the  girl  wearing  the  boy's 
hat  and  the  boy  adorned  with  the  girl's  sunbonnet.  Both  are  red- 
faced  and  tearful  with  mortified  pride.  They  preserve  a  precarious 
balance  on  their  narrow  footing  with  difficulty,  and  every  movement 
of  one  causes  the  other  to  grasp  and  clutch  to  prevent  inglorious 
downfall. 

To  sit  on  the  end  of  a  ruler,  which  the  teacher  presently  Jcnocked 
from  under  the  boy,  was  considered  by  some  pedagogues  an  effective 
punishment.  One  teacher  used  to  have  the  offending  boy  bend  over 
with  his  head  under  the  table.  Then  the  teacher  whacked  the  culprit 
from  behind  with  his  heavy  ruler,  and  sent  him  shooting  under  the 
table  and  sprawling  across  the  floor.  Among  the  most  ingenious  and 
uncomfortable  in  the  varied  list  of  punishments  was  the  fitting  a  cut 
from  a  green  twig,  partially  split,  to  the  offender's  nose.  In  cases  of 
lying,  this  rude  pair  of  pinchers  was  attached  to  the  scholar's  tongue. 


52  THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL. 

As  an  example  of  sava^^ery  we  will  mention  a  teacher  who 
threatened  upon  occasion  to  cut  off  the  children's  ears.  Imagine  the 
whole  school  listening  with  breathless  and  open-eyed  horror  while 
the  master,  before  some  little  girl,  is  explaining  the  process  of  ear- 
cutting,  and  at  the  same  time  whetting  his  knife  on  his  stout  boot. 
He  would  go  so  far  as  to  rub  the  back  of  the  blade  along  the  child's 
ears.  The  scholars  soon  saw  he  w^as  not  to  be  believed,  but  the 
threat  was  too  frightful  to  altogether  lose  its  dread,  however  often 
repeated. 

In  describing  the  schoolroom  interior,  only  one  chair  was  men- 
tioned ;  but  there  was  another  one  which  had  long  since  seen  its  best 
days  and  was  now  minus  its  back.  On  it  the  boy  who  did  not  learn 
his  lessons  was  sometimes  required  to  sit  with  a  fool's  cap  on  his 
head.  This  treatment  was  expected  not  only  to  shame  the  boy,  but 
to  serve  as  a  warning  example  to  the  school.  His  cap  was  usually 
improvised  by  the  teacher  out  of  a  sheet  of  white  paper  or  even  a 
newspaper.  Some,  however,  had  a  fool's  cap  ready  made.  One 
teacher's  was  particularly  elaborate.  It  had  a  tassel  on  top  and 
tassels  at  each  of  the  three  corners  below,  and  on  its  front  was  painted 
the  word  "  Dunce  "  in  large  capitals. 

The  games  of  the  children  were  much  the  same  as  those  of  earlier 
days.  In  winter  there  was  a  good  deal  of  rough  skirmishing  among 
the  boys,  snowballing  and  ducking  each  other  when  chance  offered. 
The  small  children  at  times  fared  hardly,  and  once  in  a  while  a  girl 
had  a  severe  experience  when  her  mates  took  a  notion  to  wrap  her 
in  her  long  cloak  and  bury  her  in  a  snowdrift.  As  soon  as  the 
burying  was  accomplished   the   buryers   would    run   awav,   and    the 


THE    MID-CENTURY    SCHOOLS,   1840  1850 


S3 


buried  would  struiri^^le  out  half  suffocated,  and  bedraggled  with  snow 
from  head  to  foot. 

On  stormy  winter  days,  when  the  scholars  all  brought  their 
dinners  and  the  teacher  was  not  there,  the  excited  racing  and  tearing 
around  that  they  did  in  the  little  room  at  noon  gave  a  vivid  though 
unconscious  representation  of  Babel  and  Bedlam.  At  the  same 
time  there  was  a  good  deal  of  running  in  and  out,  and  the  floor  by 
schooltime  was  mottled  all  over  with  snow  and  water. 

Sliding  was  in  order  when  there  was  a  crust  on  the  snow.  The 
sleds  were  great  homemade  affairs  that  three  or  four  could  sit  on  if 
need  be.     Sleds  were  usually  shod  with  hard-wood  runners,  but  some 


54 


THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL. 


boys  went  to  the  blacksmith's  and  had  their  sleds  fitted  with  runners 
of  iron.  The  boy  owner  of  a  sled  was  expected,  on  the  down-hill 
trips,  to  sit  behind  and  steer.  With  his  square-toed  boot  grating 
along  behind  he  could  make  the  sled  go  just  where  he  pleased.     In 


.-/   holiday.     Playing  at  gypsies. 

good  sliding  weather  boot-toes  disappeared  wonderfully  fast,  and  he 
was  a  lucky  fellow  whose  footwear  did  not  begin  to  gape  at  the 
extremities  before  spring.  Presently  some  genius  invented  a  copper- 
toed  boot,  which  no  doubt  "  filled  a  long-felt  want,"  for  the  inventor 
made  a  fortune  by  it. 

In  the  middle  of  each  school  session  came  recess.  First  the 
girls  went  out  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  and  when  they  were  called 
in  the  boys  went  out  for  the  same  length  of  time.  Railroads  were 
beginning  to  be  built,  but  through  the  village  I  write  of  the  old 
stages    still    ran.     When    the    clatter   and    rumi)le  of  their  ai)j)roach 


THK    MID-CENTURY    SCHOOLS,    1840-1850. 


55 


was  heard  the  eyes  of  the  children  were  sure  to  turn  toward  the 
windows  in  the  hope  of  catching  a  fleeting  ghmpse  of  the  big 
coach  as  it  dashed  past.  It  was  a  great  treat  to  be  out  at  recess 
when  it  went  by.  Yet  the  children  were  a  little  afraid  of  it ;  the 
coach  was  so  large,  and,  drawn  by  its  four  horses,  it  thundered  past 
so  swiftly.  It  was  an  impressive  sight,  and  to  the  child  the  pas- 
sengers seemed  superior  beings,  and  the  whole  thing  a  vivid  repre- 
sentation of  power  and  of  the  mystery  and  vastness  of  the  outside 
world. 


This  man  has 
a  stick  and  is 

going  to  tick  hint.' 


A  drawing  by  one  of  the  school  children. 


THE   COUNTRY  SCHOOL   OF  TO-DAY. 

T  was  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  century 
that  Charley  Smithson  began  to  go  to 
school.  The  little  brick  schoolhouse 
was  a  five  minutes'  walk  distant,  if 
he  went  straight  there  from  home. 
Charley  began  to  go  to  school  before 
he  was  quite  four  years  old,  and  he 
remembers  now  only  a  bit  here  and 
there  of  what  happened  on  those  first 
days.  There  was  his  mother,  who  always  brushed  his  hair  and 
slicked  him  up  before  he  started,  and  who  was  always  careful 
that  he  should  start  on  time,  and  who,  when  he  told  her  of  the 
bad  words  some  of  the  big  boys  used,  said,  "Those  are  not  nice, 
and  you  won't  use  them  if  they  do — will  you.?"  And  he  looked 
up  into  her  face  and  replied  with  an  honest  "  No." 

The  small  children  were  sent  more  to  relieve  their  mothers  than 
for  study,  and  for  the  first  year  Charley  had  not  much  to  do.  He 
came  out  on  the  floor  twice  each  day  and  learned  his  letters  from 
some  big  white  cards  that  had  pictures  on  them;  he  listened  to  the 
others,  and    he   was    allowed    to    i)lay  with    a    fascinating    counting- 


THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL    OF    TO-DAY. 


57 


frame  made  of  wires  struno;  with  blue,  black,  yellow,  and  green 
wooden  beads.  Sometimes  the  teacher  let  him  lay  down  on  the 
bench,  with  her  shawl  under  his  head  for  a  pillow,  and  go  to  sleep ; 
and  once  he  fell  off  on  the  lloor,  and  the  shock  made  him  awake 
with  a  sudden  start. 

There  were  now  three  terms  in  the  school  year — a  long  winter 
term  of  twelve  weeks,  and  a  spring  and  a  fall  term  of  ten  weeks 
each.  It  was  so  much  the  rule  that  the  teacher  should  be  a  woman 
that  a  man  teacher  in  a  primary  school  was  looked  upon  as  a  good 
deal  of  a  curiosity.  In  all  the  time  that  Charley  attended  the  dis- 
trict school  he  only  had  one  man  teacher,  and  he  taught  only  one 
winter  term,  Saturday  had  become  a  full  holiday.  "  Boarding 
round "  for  the  teacher  had  long  ago  been  discontinued,  and  was 
now  thought  a  "  curious  custom  of  the  olden  times."  Teachers,  as 
a  rule,  were  picked  from  among  the  girls  or  women  of  the  home 
neighborhood.  They  were  paid  five  or  six  dollars  a  week.  In  case 
a  teacher  came  from  abroad,  she  boarded  at  a  neighbor's  in  the 
schoolhouse  vicinity  at 
a  weekly  cost  of  two, 
two  and  a  half,  or  pos- 
sibly three  dollars.  The 
teacher,  for  the  time  bet- 
ing, was  adopted  as  one 
of  the  family  at  her 
boarding  place.  She 
would     probably     keep  . 

her    own     bedroom     in  a  a\-w  Eiv^iand  „. 

9 


58  THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL 

order  and  help  with  the  household  work,  at  least  to  the  extent  of 
wiping  the  breaklast  and  supper  dishes  ;  and  on  such  noons  as  the 
rest  of  the  folks  were  gone  she  got  dinner  for  the  hired  man. 

The  schoolhouse  of  the  village  of  Riverbend  was  more  roomy 
than  those  of  most  hamlets.  It  was  also  more  substantially  built, 
for  it  was  only  here  and  there  that  a  community  possessed  a  brick 
edifice.  Little  wooden  buildings,  painted  white,  were  the  rule. 
Riverbend  schoolhouse  stood  on  a  low  hill  that  was  hardly  more 
than  a  terrace.  The  little  yard  was  hemmed  in  on  three  sides  by 
a  high  and  slivery  board  fence.  In  front  was  an  open  and  white- 
painted  rail  fence  that,  in  its  first  days,  had  a  good  deal  of  style 
about  it ;  but  the  boys  rode  that  off  in  a  very  short  time,  and, 
indeed,  it  was  not  long  before  rails,  posts,  and  all  were  gone.  The 
slivery  board  fence  withstood  the  ravages  of  time  and  the  boys 
much  longer.  But  successive  climbing-overs,  whackings,  and  the 
demand  for  see-saw  boards  made  it  disappear  piecemeal,  until  there 
was  only  one  knotty  cedar  post  left,  to  which  the  committee-man 
hitched  his  horse  when  he  called. 

Among  the  advantages  of  having  the  school  building  of  brick  in- 
stead of  wood  was  the  fact  that  its  outer  walls  furnished  ah  excellent 
surface  to  sharpen  slate  pencils  on.  Once  in  a  while  there  came  a 
teacher  to  whose  nesthetic  eye  the  gray  blotches  with  which  the  chil- 
dren decorated  the  bricks  about  the  entrance  were  not  pleasing. 
Word  of  command  was  thereupon  passed  that  the  scholars  should  do 
their  pencil  sharpening  instead  on  the  heavy  stone  step  before  the 
door. 

At  a  back  corner  of  the  school  yard  stood  a  rickety  little  building 


inm. 


OF   TO-DAY 


59 


that  served  for  a  wood  shed.  It  was  unpainted  and  battered,  and 
had  a  decrepit  tendency  to  lean  sideways,  and  always  had  a  look  of 
great  age. 

Indoors  was  a  long  entry,  and  beyond  that  the  main  room,  the 
back  of  which  was  occupied  by  sixteen  bo.\  desks.  While  Charley 
Smithson  went  to  school  the  number  of  scholars  was  never  so  large 
but  that  each  could  have  a  whole  desk  to  himself.  The  scholars  left 
the  district  school  younger  than  formerly  to  attend  the  grammar  and 
high  schools  at  the  center.  The  rear  seats  in  the  room,  which  were 
monopolized  by  the  largest  and  oldest  scholars,  were  thought  the 
most  desirable  ones.  There  was  only  a  straight-uj)  wall  for  a  back, 
and  the  wind  came  in  rather  too  freely  at  the  cracks  on  cold  days, 
but  the  remoteness  from  the  teacher  and  the  all-encompassing  view 
of  the  room  the  position  afforded  were  no  doubt  sufficient  com- 
pensations. 

In  the  open  space  in  front  of  the  desks  were  the  teacher's  table, 
two  chairs,  and  the  box  stove,  which  sent  a  long  reach  of  rusty  pipe 
across  the  room.  On  the  wall  behind  the  teacher's  desk  was  a  long 
blackboard,  and  there  were  other  blackboards  between  the  north  and 
south  windows.  Beneath  these  last,  against  the  wall,  ran  a  bench,  on 
which  the  little  scholars  stood  when  they  were  at  the  board,  and 
which  was  liberally  tattooed  with  imprints  from  the  nails  in  the 
bottoms  of  their  shoes. 

The  walls  of  the  room  were  adorned  with  a  geometrically  figured 
paper  that  inclined  to  brownness  and  melancholy  in  its  general  tone. 
In  places  it  had  started  to  crack  oif,  and  in  one  or  two  spots  was 
stained  by  leaks  from  the  roof.     The  woodwork    of   the  walls    and 


6o 


THE   COUNTRY    SCHOOL 


doors  was  painted  yellow  and  stained  to  represent  polished  wood. 
The  desks  and  benches  were  painted  green — all  except  the  tops  of  the 
desks,  which  were  white.  These  soft  pine  desk-tops  offered  facilities 
for  hand  carving  and  original  decoration,  which  had  inspired  the 
pupils  to  do  a  good  deal  of  work  on  their  once  fair  surface  with  their 
jackknives  and  pencils.     It  was  on  the  boys'  side  that  the  desks  were 


TJif  Ri'.'crboul  schoolhonse. 


most  energetically  cut  up,  the  girls'  genius  running  more,  apparently, 
to  mild  pencilings. 

In  the  middle  of  the  ceiling  was  a  small  square  hole  with  a  little 
door  fitted  to  it,  that  was  known  as  "  the  ventilator,"  Originally 
there  was  a  string  attached  to  it  by  which  it  could  be  worked  from 
below.  However,  strings  are  by  nature  perishable,  and  presently  that 
string  was  no  more.  After  that  tiic  boys,  when  they  happened  to 
think  of  it,  would  clamber  up  the   unfinished  wall  in  the  entry  and 


OF   TO-DAY. 


6i 


pick  a  precarious  way  along^  the 
dark  and  still  more  unfinished 
loft  and  open  the  ventilator,  or 
shut  it,  as  the  case  mio:ht  be. 
At  the  same  time  they  usu- 
ally called  down  a  few  remarks 
through  the  hole  to  the  other 
scholars  and  threw  some  bits  of 
plastering  at  them.  After  a  lit- 
tle, having  properly  adjusted  the 
ventilator  and  thus  insured  the 
health  of  the  school,  the  boys 
descended,  and  for  some  time 
thereafter  occupied  themselves 
in  freeing  their  clothes  from  the 
dust  and  cobwebs  they  had 
gathered. 

In  the  way  of  art  the  school- 
room had  three  or  four  small  chromos ;  in  the  way  of  inspiration,  a 
dark  portrait  of  Abraham  Lincoln  in  a  still  darker  frame.  In  the 
way  of  helps  there  was  a  somewhat  antiquated  wall  map  of  the 
United  States,  and  on  the  teacher's  desk  a  small  globe.  The  teach- 
er's desk,  by  the  way,  was  quite  modern.  It  was  of  black  walnut, 
and  it  had  a  green  oilcloth  cover  on  its  lid  and  a  pretty  balustrade 
at  the  back.  The  scholars  admired  it  very  much  when  it  was  first 
put  in.  Of  course,  use  and  age  made  it  totter  on  its  legs,  and  from 
time  to  time  it  was  found  necessary  that  it  should  undergo  a  course 


The  hoy  who  makes  the  fire. 


^2  THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL 

of  gluinfrs  and  \virin<2:s.  These  were  administered  by  a  village 
farmer.  Many  of  the  farmers  numbered  carpentering  among  their 
accompHshments,  but  this  particular  person,  by  reason  of  his  special 
attainments,  might  fairly  be  designated  the  community's  prize  tink- 
erer.  He  could  patch  the  roof,  he  could  clean  the  stovepipe.  He 
was  appealed  to  when  the  door  wouldn't  lock,  and  he  was  appealed 
to  when  it  wouldn't  unlock.  When  the  paint  wore  off  the  black- 
board, he  put  on  fresh.  When  a  window  light  was  broken,  he  got 
a  new  one  and  came  down  some  evening  with  his  putty,  tools,  and 
a  lantern  and  put  it  in.  He  even  took  the  clock  in  hand  when  it 
proved  refractory.  In  short,  if  anything  was  the  matter,  or  the 
teacher  at  any  time  was  inspired  with  a  new  idea  in  the  schoolroom 
economy,  he  was  forthwith  sent  for. 

In  the  corner  of  the  room  next  to  the  stove  was  a  big  wood-box, 
unpainted  and  much  battered,  which,  like  most  things  in  the  world, 
came  to  pieces  oftener  than  seemed  strictly  necessary.  The  stove, 
too,  had  its  failings.  There  were  days  when  it  smoked,  and  at  times 
its  actions  not  only  puzzled  the  scholars  and  the  teacher,  but  the 
village  carpenter  as  well.  However,  he  would  examine  the  stove 
some  evening  after  school,  while  he  improved  the  opportunity  to  at 
the  same  time  eat  an  apple.  He  would  see  that  the  joints  in  the 
long  pipe  were  all  right,  and  adjust  the  wires  attached  to  the  ceiling 
by  which  it  was  suspended.  He  might  even  bring  a  ladder  from 
home,  climb  the  schoolhouse  roof,  and  look  down  the  chimney. 
After  that  the  stove,  if  it  had  any  conscience  whatever,  probably  be- 
haved better. 

One  of  the  boys  among  the  pupils  held  the  office  of  fire-tender 


OF   TO-DAY 


63 


11 
ft  t 

^1 


and  floor-sweeper  right  through  the  term.  He  came  early  mornings 
to  start  the  fire  and  have  the  room  well  warmed  by  school  time, 
and  once  or  twice  a  week  he  swept  the  floor.  For  this  work  he 
received  one  dollar  at  the  end  of  the  term,  or  possibly  two  dollars 
for  a  winter  term.  Not  every  boy  had  the  genius  to  make  the  fire 
go  well,  for  the  ashes  had  to  be  poked  just  about  right  to  make 
the  draft  good,  and  the  stove  door  was  broken  in  two  pieces,  and 
it  required  care  to  adjust  it  so  it  would  in  effect  be  whole  and  stay 
whole.  Those  hard-wood  fires  could  be  made  tremendously  hot 
upon  occasion.  There  were  instances  when  a  boy  suffering  for 
amusement  would  load  the  stove  as  full  of  wood  as  it  w^ndd  hold 


64 


THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL 


just  before  school  time,  that  lie  niifrht  have  the  joy  of  witnessing  the 
teacher's  consternation  when  she  came  in  and  school  began.  Yes, 
the  teacher  observed  the  heat  and  the  baked  condition  of  the  air, 
and  sought  out  the  boy  who  was  answerable  for  the  crime.  She 
told  him  that,  as  long  as  he  had  such  a  liking  for  heat,  perhaps  he 
would  be  glad  to  stand  by  the  stove  and  enjoy  it.  That  was  as 
good  as  a  command,  and  he  was  soon  perspiring  and  repenting  at 
the  side  of  the  stove.  But  he  was  a  gritty  fellow,  and  when,  just 
before  recess,  the  teacher  asked  how  he  liked  it,  he  said,  "  First 
rate." 

"  Oh,  well,"  was  the  teacher's  response,  "  if  you  enjoy  it  so  very 
much,  you  may  spend  your  recess,  too,  here  by  the  stove." 

Then  the  boy  saw  the  unwisdom  of  his  reply,  but  the  sentence 
was  passed,  and  there  was  no  help  for  it.  That  particular  boy  made 
no  more  hot  fires. 


A  game  of  lu 


OF    TO-DAY. 


65 


On  the  bench  by  the  woodbox  was  set  the  water  pail.  Be- 
side it  was  the  drinking  utensil,  sometimes  a  tin  cup,  sometimes  a 
glass  tumbler,  and  for  one  while  a  little  custard  cup.  It  was  aston- 
ishing how  many  times  a  scholar  could  drink  that  custard  cup  full 
when  he  made  the  attempt.  The  small  boy  in  the  front  seat  would 
drink  as  much  as  he  could  hold,  and  then  turn  around  and  watch 
the  progress  of  the  water  pail  to  observe  if  any  one  could  exceed 
him.  If  the  pail-bearer  had  a  grudge  against  any  particular  one,  or 
was  humorously  inclined,  he  might  snatch  the  cup  away  before  the 
drinker  had  taken  more  than  a  mouthful  or  two,  or  would  give 
the  cup  a  gentle  but  sudden  tilt  that  inundated  the  drinker  in  a 
small  way.  The  office  of  water-passer  seemed  to  be  quite  desira- 
ble, and  "  May  I  pass  the  water  }  "  was  a  question  which  required 
frequent  answer  from  the  teacher.  The  water  was  brought  from  the 
nearest  neighbor's.  A  big  boy  could  get  it  alone,  but  usually  two 
went  to  carry  the  pail.  In  the  interregnums  between  the  wearing 
out  of  one  pail  and  the  getting  a  new  one  the  scholars  all  racedJ^'xIx^'^^r^v^ 
over  to  "Uncle  Elijah's"  each  recess  to  refresh  themselves  at  tR^'''^^^^''";"^ 
tub  of  running-  spring-  water  which  stood  at  his  back  door.  V^^       '^ 

The  clock  has  been   mentioned.     That  was  a  recent  innovation.\-    v 
For   many  years    after   the  reign    of  the  hourglass  and  sundial  the  >v^^^ 

teachers  had  been  accustomed  to  carry  watches,  but  a  schoolroom 
clock  was  a  very  recent  idea.  This  one  was  bought  by  a  subscrip- 
tion raised  by  the  scholars  among  their  respective  parents,  and  it 
was  fastened  to  the  wall  over  one  of  the  blackboards,  where  the 
scholars  could  note  how  time  flew,  though  it  must  be  confessed 
they  usually  thought  time  went  pretty  slowly. 


66 


THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL 


Another  villa^re  subscription  supplied  the  schoolroom  with  a 
number  of  lamps,  which,  with  their  shining  tin  reflectors,  had  been 
fastened  up  at  intervals  along  the  walls.  These  saved  the  trouble 
of  bringing  from  the  homes  lamps  and  lanterns  for  illuminating 
purposes  every  time  the  villagers  gathered  for  a  lyceum,  or  a  Christ- 
mas tree,  or  an  evening  prayer-meeting. 

School  began  at  nine  o'clock,  with  reading  a  chapter  from  the 
New  Testament.  The  scholars  read  in  turn  two  verses  each  as  long 
as  the  chapter  lasted,  and  then  put  their  arms  on  the  desks,  bowed 
their  heads  on  them,  and  with  the  teacher  repeated  the  Lord's 
Prayer   in   concert.      Next    came  the  clatter  of  getting  out   books 

and   other   work- 
^^^^^^^^     1— ^T-^^^—     jj^g         apparatus, 

and  the  asking 
of  questions  and 
making  requests 
of  the  teacher. 
In  a  few  minutes 
they  had  settled 
down  to  their 
tasks,  and  the 
teacher  began  call- 
ing classes.  The 
A-B  C  class  was 
called  first,  then  the  class  in  the  First  Reader,  then  the  class  in  the 
Second  Reader,  and  so  on.  The  teacher  had  on  her  desk  a  little 
bronze   bell  with  a  wooden    handle,   which    she   tinkled    to  call  and 


S/artiiii;-  the 


OF    TO  DAY 


67 


dismiss  the  classes.  Each  class  was  expected  to  stand  in  a  straight 
line,  toeing  a  certain  crack  in  the  floor  which  possessed  greater  merits 
for  a  toe-line  than  its  fellows  in  that  it  had  more  width. 

As  the  fore- 
noon wore  on, 
the  smallest  chil- 
dren were  allowed 
to  go  out  for 
what  was  called 
the  "  little  recess," 
provided  it  was 
summer  time. 
Just  how  they 
amused  them- 
selves it  is  not 
easy  to  say,  for  the  youngest  children  manage  to  have  a  very  good 
time  with  the  very  simplest  of  accessories.  North  and  east  of  the 
schoolhouse  were  apple  orchards,  where  the  scholars  were  privileged 
to  help  themselves  to  such  fruit  as  they  found  lying  on  the  ground. 
Just  outside  the  school  yard  was  a  great  maple,  and  down  the  road 
a  short  distance  was  another  nearly  as  large.  In  the  spring  these 
trees  dropped  quantities  of  their  winged  seeds  into  the  grass.  If 
you  laid  them  on  the  hard  dirt  and  stepped  on  them  just  right 
they  would  burst  with  a  faint  pop.  A  child  dearly  loves  a  pop, 
be  it  great  or  small,  and  will  expend  a  good  deal  of  time  and  inge- 
nuity devising  means  whereby  he  can  make  things  pop.  One 
boy  in  the  school  was  so  organized  that  he  could  throw  his  thumbs 


68  THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL 

out  of  joint,  at  the  same  time  producing  a  quite  perceptible  crack- 
ing sound.  He  was  looked  up  to  as  an  authority  and  genius  in 
the  matter  of  poppings  and  crackings.  He  could  also,  by  opening 
his  mouth  and  rapping  on  his  head  with  his  knuckles,  produce  a 
dubious  and  hollow  sound  that  would  make  one  think  his  head 
was  nearly  empty.     Perhaps  it  was ! 

A  paper  bag  blown  full  of  air  and  crushed  made  a  delightfully 
loud  explosion,  but  these  bags  seldom  found  their  way  to  the  school- 
house.  The  best  poppers  within  reach  were  large  leaves,  which  were 
laid  across  a  circle  made  by  the  thumb  and  forefinger  of  the  left 
hand  and  slapped  with  the  palm  of  the  right.  The  girls  could  make 
very  pretty  wreaths  of  the  maple  leaves,  weaving  them  together  by 
means  of  their  long  stems.  Dandelions  in  the  season  were  a  source 
of  amusement.  "  I'm  going  to  see  whether  my  mother  wants  me  or 
not,"  says  Jenny.  She  draws  in  a  full  breath  and  blows  very  hard  at 
the  white  dandelion  head  held  before  her  pursed  lips.  If  all  the 
seeds  are  blown  away,  she  knows  her  mother  does  want  her ;  but  if 
any  remain,  it  is  settled  that  she  is  not  then  needed.  The  long, 
hollow  dandelion's  stems,  if  held  in  the  mouth  and  split  slowly  with 
the  tongue,  curled  in  two  very  neat  and  tight  rolls.  When  shaken 
out,  these  made  spirals  that,  hung  over  the  ears,  made  quite  enticing 
earrings. 

Another  useful  flower  was  the  buttercup.  It  was  an  excellent 
medium  by  which  to  determine  the  important  question  whether 
one  loved  butter  or  not.  Just  hold  it  under  Jenny's  or  Johnny's 
chin,  and  if  you  see  a  yellow  reflection  from  its  burnished  j)etals  there 
is  a  sure  sign  that  he  or  she  loves  butter. 


OF    TO-DAY.  69 

Beside  the  road,  near  by,  were  some  great  coarse  burdock  plants. 
The  green  and  purple  burs  could  be  stuck  together  into  very  neat 
baskets.  Then  there  was  a  small  dooryard  plant,  whose  round.  Oat 
seeds  were  called  by  the  children  "  cheeses,"  and  which  were  con- 
sidered very  good  eating.  Sorrel  leaves  and  clover  blossoms  were 
other  sources  of  food  supply. 

Back  of  the  schoolhouse  was  a  wide  meadow  where  the  children 
out  at  "little  recess"  chased  the  butterflies  with  their  straw  hats,  and 
gathered  bouquets  of  the  flowers  that  grew  there.  The  best  thing  of 
all,  anywhere  near,  was  a  little  brook  that  ran  along  the  borders  of 
the  meadow.  There  were  endless  possibilities  of  fun  in  that  bit  of 
water.  You  could  paddle  in  it,  you  could  sail  things  on  it,  you  could 
wet  up  your  mud  pies  there,  and  you  could  build  a  dam  that  would 
make  it  overflow  its  banks.  In  winter,  if  the  season  favored,  the 
brook  filled  two  or  three  hollows  below,  which,  when  frozen  over, 
made  excellent  skating  ground.  The  scholars  were  often  on  it  before 
the  ice  was  fairly  safe.  There  was  a  pleasurable  excitement  to  the 
venturesome  ones  in  sliding  on  a  "  bender."  A  bender  was  made  by 
sliding  across  weak  ice  which  cracked  as  you  slid.  The  longer  the 
sliding  was  continued  the  more  the  ice  sagged  beneath  each  passing 
weight,  and  the  more  it  bent  the  greater  waxed  the  excitement. 
Finally  some  one  broke  through  and  got  his  feet  wet,  and  then  the 
crowd  all  went  up  to  the  schoolhouse  satisfied. 

In  warm  weather,  when  the  whole  school  came  out  for  the  "  big 
recess,"  the  favorite  game  was  ball.  This  was  more  particularly 
a  boy's  game,  but  the  girls  played  too,  sometimes.  When  the  grass 
was  cut  they  liked  to  have  their  ball  game  in  the  meadow,  but  for  the 


70 


THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL 


The  class  in  geography. 


most  part  they  contented  themselves  with  the  dusty  roadway.  Play- 
ing horse  was  in  high  esteem,  and  at  times  even  the  charms  of  the 
ball  game  paled  before  the  delights  of  racing,  and  every  child  carried 
around  ten  or  fifteen  feet  of  string  in  his  or  her  pocket.  There  were 
all  kinds  of  horses,  from  "  Stick-in-the-Mud  "  to  "  Maud  S,"  from  the 
trained  circus-horse  to  the  wild  horses  of  the  plains.  The  scholars 
drove  each  other  to  school  and  they  drove  each  other  home,  and 
raced  at  every  opportunity  between  whiles. 

"  Jail  "  was  another  game  played.  In  this  the  woodhouse  served 
as  a  prison,  and  the  jailor  caught  the  prisoners  running,  and  in 
imagination  he  shut  them  up  there ;  but  there  was  no  door,  and  it  was 


OF   TO-DAY. 


71 


necessary  that  those  caui^ht  should  agree  not  to  break  out.  "  Bear " 
was  played  in  something  the  same  way.  The  woodhouse  was  the 
bear's  den,  and  from  there  he  issued  forth  and  captured  the  others. 
In  the  fall,  great  piles  of  fallen  leaves  were  raked  together  and  the 
"  bear  "  was  covered  in  them.  The  school  gathered  about  the  heap, 
and  then  the  "bear"  sprang  forthwith  terrible  growls  and  a  grand 
scattering  of  leaves  and  chased  whichever  of  the  children  came 
handiest.  ^^ 

In  winter,  besides  sliding  and  skating,  there  was  a  good  deal  of 
desultory  snowballing.  Some- 
times the  snowballing  went  far 
beyond  the  bounds  of  gentleness 
or  mischief,  and  the  white  mis- 
siles were  hurled  in  swift  an- 
ger, and  there  were  fights,  and 
faces  were  washed  and  ducked 
in  the  snowbanks.  This  was 
not  a  serious  matter  to  the  big 
boys,  but  the  little  fellows  had 
some  hard  experiences.  Let 
some  great  rough  boy  catch  a 
little  one  and  proceed  to  jam 
him  into  some  drift,  or  let  him 
chase  the  small  one  with  a 
threatening  snowball  ;  there 
will  be  few  occasions  in  all 
the    trembling,     gasping     little 


Sharpening  his  slate  pencil. 


^2  THE    COUNTRY   SCHOOL 

fellow's  after-life  when  he  will  suffer  such  terror.  When  Charley 
Smithson  first  went  to  school  there  was  one  big  Irish  boy  by  the 
name  of  Jim  Londergrass  who  acted  as  a  protector  to  the  small 
children.  He  was  a  most  good-natured  fellow,  and  he  would  allow 
the  boys  to  throw  snow  at  him  and  knock  him  about  as  much  as 


The  class  hi  the  Fifth   Kcaan: 

they  pleased  ;  but  let  any  of  them  be  rough  with  a  little  one,  and 
they  heard  from  him  very  quickly.  Jim  left  school  in  a  year  or  two 
and  went  away  to  work.  Charley  has  never  heard  from  him  since, 
but  Jim  has  always  been  treasured  in  his  memory  as  a  true  knight 
and  hero. 

At  times  the  boys  divided    into  sides  and    had    pitched    battles 


OF   TO-DAY. 


n 


with  their  snowballs.  Once  they  built  a  snow  fort  and  j)lanned 
for  a  fi.ulit  that  was  to  be  particularly  grand.  Some  of  the  boys 
prepared  frozen  snowballs  for  the  occasion.  Luckily,  a  thaw  set 
in  which  laid  the  fort  in  ruins,  and  this  desperate  battle  was  not 
fought. 

After  the  morning  recess  the  several  classes  in  arithmetic  re- 
cited. All  but  the  very  highest  schoolbooks  were  illustrated  quite 
fully,  even  the  arithmetics ;  and  each  book  had  a  picture  on  its 
board  covers.  The  scholars,  when  reciting  in  mathematics,  a  part 
of  the  time  stood  in  line  and  answered  questions  and  repeated 
rules,  and  a  part  of  the  time  "did  examples  on  the  board." 

There  was  one  teacher  who  kept  Charley  Smithson  on  the 
multiplication  table  a  whole  term,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he 
told  her  he  was  much  beyond  that.  He  got  so  he  could  say  it 
over  frontward  and  backward,  beginning  at  either  end  or  in  the 
middle,  and  he  frequently  covered  one  of  the  small  blackboards 
with  it  written  out,  from  2X1  =  2  to   12  X  12  =  i44- 

Charley's  most  serious  trouble  with  arithmetic  came  when  he 
met  with  long  division.  For  several  days  he  studied  the  new 
problems  and  attempted  them  on  his  slate,  but  they  seemed  hope- 
lessly entangled.  A  boy  from  a  neighboring  town  visited  school 
about  that  time,  and,  though  no  older  than  Charley,  it  was  said 
he  could  do  examples  in  long  division.  Charley  regarded  him  as  a 
prodigy,  and  sank  in  deeper  gloom.  But  one  day  light  burst  on  his 
mind,  and  after  that  he  could  only  wonder  what  it  was  that  had 
puzzled  him. 

Sometimes    the   whole    school  joined  in    an    arithmetic    exercise. 


74 


THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL 


The  Primer  class. 


The  teacher  would  say,  "Add  two  and  two;  multiply  by  four;  take 
away  six  ;  divide  by  five,"  etc.,  and  after  a  while  ask,  "  Now,  how 
many  of  you  have  the  answer  ?  " 

Up  would  go  the  hands  of  those  who  had  been  able  to  follow 
the  processes,  or  thought  they  had,  and  the  teacher  would  call  upon 
some  one  for  the  answer.  This  exercise  was  considered  very  ex- 
citing and  interesting. 

The  afternoon  began  with  another  hearing  of  the  reading  classes; 
then  followed  the  class  in  grammar,  one  in  history,  and  the  after- 
noon closed  with  the  hearing  of  the  geography  classes.  In  the 
geograi)hy    lessons   they    often    drew    maps    on    the    boards.     Some- 


OF   TO-DAY. 


75 


times  they  drew  them  off-hand,  and  sometimes  they  used  straight- 
lined  diagrams  to  help  them  make  what  they  drew  more  like  the 
real  things. 

When  Charley  got  his  first  new  geography  book,  and  the  class 
was  organized,  he  went  at  the  study  with  great  energy.  On  the 
morning  of  the  day  they  were  to  recite  the  first  lesson  he  informed 
the  teacher  that  he  had  studied  his  geography  over  five  times  the 
night  before.  The  teacher  rewarded  this  assiduity  by  letting  him 
stand  at  the  head  of  the  class,  although  he  was  one  of  its  smallest 
members  ;  but,  to  his  surprise,  in  spite  of  all  his  studying,  not  a 
single   question   could   he    answer.     He  had  simply  read  the  words 


^6  THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL 

of  his  lesson,  and  had  not  attempted  to  hx  in  his  mind  the  ideas. 
Next  day,  h-om  a  humble  position  at  the  foot  of  the  class,  he  did 
much  better. 

A  quarter  of  an  hour  before  the  morning  recess  the  writing 
books,  which  the  teacher  kept  in  her  desk,  were  distributed,  and 
the  scholars  got  out  their  pens  and  uncorked  their  ink  bottles,  and 
proceeded  to  copy  line  after  line  of  the  mottoes  at  the  head  of  each 
page.  The  smallest  scholars  exercised  their  ingenuity  in  making 
straight  and  curved  lines  with  a  lead  pencil,  or  in  tracing  over  the 
blue  lines  of  printed  copy,  w^hile  the  conscientious  older  ones  gave 
their  minds  to  putting  in  the  flourishes  and  the  shading  just  right. 
Meanwhile  the  teacher  walked  about  and  kept  lead  pencils  sharp- 
ened, gave  advice  as  to  what  had  best  be  done  when  a  bad  blot 
was  made,  or  a  page  filled  out  ahead  of  time,  and  now  and  then 
sat  down  by  a  scholar  and  showed  just  how  that  })articular  bit 
should  be  written.  The  teacher  usually  had  the  children  sit  in  a 
certain  posture,  and  tried  to  have  them  take  an  easier  position  with 
their  fingers  than  the  stubby  grip  on  pen  or  pencil  that  seemed  to 
come  natural. 

Occasionally  drawing  was  taught  in  the  school,  and  each  scholar 
had  a  brown-leaved  drawing  book  of  the  same  oblong  shape  as  the 
writing  books.  On  each  leaf,  at  one  side,  were  patterns  to  copy, 
with  some  printed  matter  explaining  how  it  was  done.  First  came 
straight  lines  and  squares  and  circles,  and  gradually  more  conijili- 
cated  forms,  solid  bodies,  vases,  and  flowers.  In  the  books  Charley 
studied,  the  final  masterpiece  was  a  bit  of  potato  top  in  blossom. 
Potato  plants  he  had  always  thought  very  homely   as  he  saw  then:k 


OF    TO-DAY.  TJ 

gro\vin<T    in     the    fields,     l)ut     here     it     seemed     really    a    thing  of 
beauty. 

Many  of    the    teaehers    had    a    few  moments   of   gymnastics  in 

school  each  session.      In  these  the  scholars  stood  by  their  desks  to 
go  through  the  various  movements.     In  the  parts  where  there  was 

stamping  or  hand-clapping  considerable    enthusiasm  was  aroused  in 


A  drink  from  a  stn-niii   ni   III,    :,;>,;r^   ,»i   I  hi    :.;iv  honi.-  from  school. 

seeing  how  much  noise  could  be  made.  In  the  bandings  backward, 
forward,  or  sideways  there  was  always  interest  in  determining  just 
how  far  one  could  go,  even  though  it  endangered  one's  equilib- 
rium, and  in  the  motions  which  called  for  a  clenched  fist  there 
were    those  whose    imaginations  were   stimulated  to  fancying  them- 


78 


THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL 


selves  eno^aged  in  a  pugilistic  encounter.  Such  were  particularly- 
exhilarated  when  their  fists  came  into  semi-accidental  encounter 
with  a  neighbor. 

Singing  found  frequent  place  in  the  school  exercises  when  the 
teacher  was  herself  gifted  in  that  way.  Gospel  Hymns  was  the 
favorite  book  for  selections  on  such  occasions.  Whatever  the  mu- 
sical lacks  of  the  performance  were,  the  volume  of  sound  could 
always  be  depended  on  to  be  fully  up  to  the  mark,  when  the  song 
had  a  lively  and  easily-caught  movement. 

Teachers  sometimes  read  to  the  scholars  a  little  each  day,  or  for 
an  hour  or  so  on  Friday  afternoons.  One  of  Charley's  teachers 
read  them  an  exciting  book  about  Indians  and  hunters,  and  for  that 
reason  Charley  thought  her  about  the  best  teacher  that  ever  was. 
The  book  was  so  fascinating  that  the  scholars  would  gladly  stay  in 
at  recess  to  hear  it  read. 

Punishments,  as  a  whole,  had  become  much  milder  than  in  the 
old  days,  and  many  teachers  got  along  without  any  punishments 
that  involved  bodily  pain  or  made  the  child  a  spectacle  of  supposed 
shame  to  his  fellows.  "  Thrashings  "  were  no  more,  but  once  in  a 
great  while  a  teacher  would  resort  to  feruling.  The  front  seats  and 
standing  room  on  the  floor  were  reserved  for  those  who  misbehaved, 
and  there  were  occasions  when  it  seemed  necessary  to  keep  a  child 
in  at  recess  or  after  school. 

There  was  a  great  difference  in  teachers.  Some  were  in  earnest 
and  did  careful,  faithful  work,  but  occasionally  there  was  one  who 
was  careless,  and  more  interested  in  her  own  ease  than  in  the 
scholars'  progress.     But  an  extreme  case  was  not  apt  to  stay  long. 


OF    TO  DAY.  79 

The  scholars  were  sure  to  report  at  home  what  the  teacher  did  and 
said,  and  when  the  tide  of  public  sentiment  set  strt)nirly  against  her 
she  had  to  leave. 

In  dress,  these  country  children,  i)eing  of  the  present,  need  not 
be  described  in  detail.  Garments  in  color  and  pattern  and  material 
were  much  more  varied  than  in  times  past.  Many  of  the  boys  and 
some  of  the  girls  inherited  their  elders'  outgrown  or  worn-out  clothes, 
which  needed  only  a  little  adjusting  or  making  over  to  fit  them 
for  further  duty.  At  one  time  the  boys  used  to  wear  copper-toed 
and  red-topped  boots  in  the  winter,  but,  later,  shoes  and  rubbers  came 
into  more  general  use.  In  summer  most  of  the  boys  went  barefoot, 
and  in  the  dryest  times  it  was  agreeable  to  the  boy  to  follow  along 
the  middle  of  the  road  on  his  way  to  school,  stubbing  up  as  big  a 
cloud  of  dust  as  he  knew  how.  Once  in  a  while  a  girl  went  bare- 
foot, but  that  was  not  the  rule. 

Visitors  were  infrequent.  When  they  did  come,  the  scholars 
seemed  to  think  they  would  bear  watching — at  least  they  did  watch 
them.  The  most  important  visitor  was  the  chairman  of  the  school 
committee.  While  he  was  there  the  classes  were  all  called  out  to 
give  him  an  idea  of  the  progress  they  were  making.  One  thing  he 
was  sure  to  do  in  the  reading  lessons  was,  after  the  child  had  read, 
to  ask  him,  "  Now  what  did  they  do  }" 

The  boy  turned  to  his  book  and  started  to  repeat  in  the  same 
sing-song  manner  the  words  he  had  just  read. 

"  No,  no,"  said  the  committee-man,  "  shut  your  book,  and  tell  me 
what  they  did." 

That  accomplished,  he  would   try  to  get  the  boy  to  read  con- 


So 


THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL 


versationally,  instead  of  sing-song,  but  iiis  success  was  not  flattering. 
Just  before  the  committee  left,  the  scholars  shut  uji  their  books  and 
sat  about  straight,  while  the  visitor  rose,  put  his  hands  behind  his 
back,  and  made  some  "  remarks  "  to  them.  These  were  to  the  pur- 
port that  they  should  be  tidy,  and  keep  the  room  tidy,  and  that  it 
would  be  a  great  help  to  success  in  after-life  to  have  good  lessons  and 
to  learn  to  behave  well. 

The  great  visitors'  day,  and  indeed  the  grand  occasion  of  the  term, 
was  "  examination  day."  The  schoolroom  was  swept  out  very  clean 
the  night  before,  or  perhaps  well  scrubbed  with  soap  and  water,  so 
that  a  slight  odor  of  soapiness  and  sense  of  dampness  lingered  all 
through  the  following  day.     The  morning  session  was  a  short  one, 


OF   TO-DAY. 


8i 


that  the  scholars  mi_uht  have  plenty 
of  time  to  eat  dinner  and  dress 
themselves  in  their  "  Sunday-go-to- 
meetin's."  They  came  in  the  after- 
noon very  spick  and  span.  Chairs 
were  brought  in  from  the  neigh- 
bors', and  a  little  mild  play  indulged 
in  before  the  bell  rang  to  call  them 
indoors.  Not  much  was  done  until 
visitors  began  to  arrive,  and  an  air  of 
expectancy  and  solemnity  brooded 
over  the  schoolroom.  Women  and 
very  small  children  were  the  only 
visitors,  usually,  and  it  was  before 
them  that  the  scholars  were  called 
out  to  recite  such  things  as  they 
knew  best,  and  possibly  to  speak  a 
few  pieces  and  read  compositions. 
The  visitors  were  further  entertained 
by  being  allowed  to  examine  the 
scholars*  writing  books,  and  to  look  through  the  school  register, 
wherein  each  scholar's  regularity  of  attendance  was  indicated,  and 
where  were  put  down  the  names  of  such  callers  as  the  school  had 
had.  By  and  by  there  was  a  recess,  where,  of  necessity,  the  play 
was  not  very  vigorous,  because  the  scholars  all  had  their  best  things 
on,  in  which  they  were  less  comfortable  and  free  than  usual,  and 
which  they   felt  under  obligation  to  keep   slick  and    clean.      When 


One  of  the  big  boys 


S2 


THE    COUNTRY   SCHOOL. 


school  was  finally  let  out  for  good  and  the  scholars  were  without 
doors  they  rejoiced  in  a  pandemonium  of  shoutings  and  waving  of 
hats. 

They  rejoiced  because  school  days  were  over  ;  and  yet — and  yet — 
what  happier  days  does  life  bring  than  the  care-free  days  one  spends 
in  a  Country  School  ? 


The  good  hoy  who  is  allowed  to  study  out  of  doors. 


HOW   THE   SCHOLARS    THINK   AND   WRITE. 


UMOR,  it  is  said,  consists   in  the  unexpected- 
ness of  an  idea  or  expression.     Even  a  good 
joke  heard  a  second  time  has  lost  something 
~    of  its  flavor;  and  a  popular  bit  of  slang,  which 
originally    may    have    had    an    agreeable    tang 
about    it,  wearies  and  disturbs    by    its  frequent 
repetition. 

In  that  the  child's  thought  continually  wan- 

Wf-ititti^  a  lOiiif'osition. 

ders  aside  from  the  routine  paths  of  its  elders, 
its  speech  and  action  is  full  of  unconscious  humor.  Indeed,  the 
humor  must  be  unconscious  to  have  any  charm,  for  the  child  who 
tries  to  be  funny  is  certain  to  make  a  dismal  failure  of  it.  Children 
are  readily  enkindled  with  interest  and  enthusiasm,  and  their 
thought  at  such  times  is  often  very  happy  and  luminous.  It  many 
times  runs  far  astray,  but  that  does  not  make  it  less  interesting. 
Nor  is  a  wrong  answer  always  indicative  of  dullness  or  poor  teach- 
ing. It  is  as  frequently  due,  I  think,  to  brightness  and  originality. 
The  child,  when  it  begins  to  observe,  finds  the  medley  of  sounds 
which  it  encounters,  with  all  their  different  meanings,  bewildering, 
and,  as  is  to  be  expected,   often   uses  one  word  instead  of  another 


84 


THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL. 


which  to  some  degree  resembles  it.  Children  jump  to  conclusions 
even  more  frequently  than  grown-up  people  do — which  is  saying  a 
good  deal — and  they  at  times  make  a  wild  use  of  disconnected  ideas 
that  they  have  chanced  to  pick  up.  But  they  at  other  times  will 
make  an  explanation  with  a  simplicity  and  patness  that  might  well 
move  the  most  learned  to  envy. 

In  writing,  children  get  badly  entangled  by  the  words  which  are 
not  spelled  as  pronounced.     They  have  a  strong  inclination  to  spell 


phonetically,  but  those  qucerly  constructed  words  they  have  learned 
haunt  their  minds  and  they  sometimes  spell  one  of  the  simple  words 
the  long  way.     Punctuation  is  likewise  a  trouble  to  them.     Usually 


HOW    THE    SCHOLARS   THINK    AND    WRITE.  85 

they  put  in  an  occasional  period,  and  may  even  venture  to  use  a 
comma,  but  they  are  sparino^  in  the  use  of  both,  and  avoid  other 
marks  altogether.  Capitals  are  another  disturbing  element  to  the 
limpid  flow  of  the  child's  thought  when  writing.  Children,  however, 
are  pretty  sure  to  start  with  a  capital  and  begin  most  sentences  with 
one.  A  few  are  sprinkled  in  promiscuously,  and  if  some  are  mis- 
placed, there  are  lacks  elsewhere,  so  that  the  average  is  about  right. 
A  scientific  division  of  the  words  which  fall  last  on  the  lines  they 
are  writing  and  still  lack  for  room,  is  understood  by  few.  Most 
put  in  a  hyphen  after  the  last  letter  the  line  will  contain  with 
entire  independence  of  syllables,  and  begin  the  next  line  where 
they  left  off.  Others  avoid  the  dilemma  by  the  habit  of  leaving 
a  margin  along  the  right  border  of  the  page,  so  that  long  words 
can  run  over  into  that  without  necessity  for  division.  Still  others 
turn  such  words  downward  along  the  edge  till  written  out  in  a 
cramped  fullness. 

The  scholars  are  most  entertaining  and  do  their  best  when  writ- 
ing on  a  subject  which  engages  their  personal  feeling  and  interest — 
something  which  is  a  part  of  their  own  experience  and  observation. 
What  they  write  of  things  far  off  is,  as  a  rule,  dry  and  stiff.  On  such 
topics  the  children  express  themselves  more  correctly  than  when 
writing  of  things  about  home — on  the  same  principle  that  one  does 
not  stumble  so  often  when  walking  sedately  as  when  in  enthusiastic 
haste.  But  culture  comes  from  love  of  learning,  not  from  present 
correctness  of  expression,  and  the  children  undoubtedly  gain  far  more 
in  putting  on  paper  what  they  have  learned  by  sight  and  hearing  than 
in  writing  out  what  they  have  gained  from  books. 


86  THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL. 

The   examples  which  lollow  were    all  gathered  in  a  small   New 
England  village  described  in  an  earlier  chapter  as  Riverbend. 

DEFINITIONS. 

A  dwarf  is  one  that  holds  up  a  lady's  train. 

Sister  :  If  there  was  a  girl  and  she  lived  at  your  house  and  she 
was  your  mother's  daughter,  then  she  would  be  your  sister. 

Missionary  :  One  who  makes  hats.     One  who  surveys  land. 
■^  The  missionaries  went  to  invert  the  Indians. 
— '  Remember  means  to  know  afterwards  what  you  know  now. 

Some  kinds  of  poultry  are  chickens,  hens  and  lambs. 

A  territory  is  a  small  place  down  in  a  valley. 

Cutlery  is  knives  forks  and  sewing-machines. 
.....^Work  is  keeping  at  something  all  the  time. 

Trouble  is  having  something  that  you  don't  like. 

History  is  studying  an  examination. 

Crying  is  shidding  tears. 

News  is  to  hear  something  that  we  have  not  beared  before. 

Scholars  are  children  studying. 

Work  is  to  help  the  poor ;  that  is  the  best  of  work. 

If  there  was  a  poor  old  lady  living  alone  it  would  be  k/udncss  to 
do  her  work. 

History  is  a  study  of  the  United  States. 

History  is  a  history  telling  about  olden  times. 

History  tells  about  wars. 

History  is  a  book  that  the  scholars  study  about. 


HOW    THE    SCHOLARS    THINK    AND    WRITE. 

News  is  to  here  things. 

News  is  when  anything  new  happens. 
-To  be  contented  is  to  have  everything  you  want. 

Contented  means  to  be  happy  wherever  you  are. 

Contented  is  when  you  have  enough. 

You  are  coiitcjitcd  when  you  are  asleep. 

To  cry  is  to  feel  very  bad. 

Work  means  to  do  something  hard. 

Bussy  is  when  you  have  a  lot  of  work  to  do. 

A  laugh  is  when  you  are  happy. 

Vegitables  are  all  kinds  of  fruit. 

The  diameter  of  the  earth  was  Noah's  dove. 

Colors  are  different  shades. 

Study  is  to  learn. 

Arithmetic  is  to  do  different  sums. 

Arithmetic  is  used  to  trade  with. 

Fire  is  very  hot  and  the  color  of  red. 

A  picture  is  to  repersent  anything. 
-— ^A  picture  is  something  that  looks  like  what  it  was  drawn  from, 

A  picture  is  something  to  look  at. 
-  Writeing  is  made  of  ink  and  lead. 

Write  is  to  talk  with  letters. 

Paper  is  to  right. 

Reading  is  talking. 

An  animal  is  something  that  has  4  or  more  legs. 

An  animal  is  a  cow  who  gives  milk. 

Animals  are  made  of  flesh  and  bones. 


87 


88  THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL. 

Dirt  is  something  we  could  not  live  without. 

An  oasis  is  a  desert  place. 

An  oasis  is  a  flock  of  trees  in  a  desert. 

A  gizzard  is  where  the  gravel  goes. 

A  gizzard  is  a  kind  of  fowl. 
-Bacon  is  a  streak  of  lean  and  fat. 

Shoulder  is  the  joints  of  animals  which  holds  them  up. 

A  favor  is  to  do  something  good. 

Henpecked    means  to  be  governed  by  your  wife. 

Flowers  are  a  vegitable. 

Favor  is  a  bottle  of  water  that  smells  good. 

Favor  means  when  you  tell  some  one  to  go  after  something 
and  they  go.  The  one  that  asks  the  boy  is  the  one  who  does  the 
favor. 

Favor  is  when  a  boy  does  something  for  his  mother. 

A  flag  is  what  you  wave. 

Metal  is  a  stone. 

Metal  is  something  good  to  wear. 

A  city  is  a  large  place. 

A  city  is  a  lot  of  buildings. 

A  city  is  a  place  where  they  sell  groceries. 

A  city  is  a  place  where  they  sell  grain  for  horses  and  cows. 

Desire  means  to  know  everything. 

Velvet  means  the  fur  on  a  cat's  ear. 

Whisker  means  a  hair  on  a  cat's  mouth. 

Noiseless  means  to  make  a  little  noise. 

Spkled  means  little  dogs. 


HOW    THE    SCHOLARS    THINK    AND    WRITE 


After  a  snoajstorin. 


Toothsome  means  hard. 

Almonds  are  a  kind  of  pudding. 

Occupations  of  people  in  Hadley  :  Farming,  grinding,  making 
broomes,  keep  store,  keep  postoffice,  make  whips,  make  candy,  they 
bild  houses,  they  eat,  they  drink. 

Luncheon  means  to  eat  between  meals. 

Feast  means  to  have  a  good  deal. 

Sky  is  made  up  of  fog. 

The  sky  is  where  the  moon  and  sun  is. 

13 


QO  THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL. 

-"  Air  is  a  good  deal  like  weather. 

Air  is  wind. 

Air  is  what  you  breave. 

Eat  is  to  make  your  jaws  go. 

Eat  means  the  digestion  of  food. 

To  eat  is  to  swallow  anything. 

To  eat  is  to  satisfy  your  appetite. 

Home  is  the  place  of  your  parents. 

Home  is  you's  house. 

Calendars  are  made  of  paper  and  numbers. 

Calendars  are  used  in  telling  how  warm  and  cold  it  is. 

Fruits  is  a  bige  apples  is  a  red  and  it  is  about  bigs  as  a  pair 
that  is  sweet. 

A  fruit  is  something  that  comes  on  a  tree. 

A  whip  is  a  stick  and  a  lash  on  the  end  of  it. 

A  whip  is  something  good  to  lick  horses  with. 

A  mountain  is  lots  of  trees. 

A  mountain  is  a  big  pile  of  dirt. 

Money  is  a  round  and  has  a  sign  on  it. 

Money  is  to  by  things  with. 

Sky  is  clouds. 

Sky  is  air. 

Sky  is  something  that  the  rain  falls  out  of. 

Weather  is  rain  or  shine. 

Eat  means  your  mouth. 

Play  means  when  you  are  running  around  and  hiding  behind 
trees  and  houses. 


HOW    THE   SCHOLARS    THINK    AND    WRITE. 


91 


Roasts  is  a  part  of  a  cow. 

The    cattle    products    of    South    ^Xmerica    are    hides,  tallow,  and 
silver. 

They  have  stews  at   boardino;-houses. 

Government  is  the  governor. 

Fiercely  is  very   uggly. 

Ditches  is  a  hole. 

Destroy  means  to  have  a  book  tored  up, 
-  Pitfalls  means  to  pitty  anybody. 

Suddenly  meanes  that  think  she  will  die. 

Pounces  means  to  jump  up  on  a  cat  or  anvthing. 

The  number  of  people  on  the  earth  was  the  reason    for  its  be- 
ing flattened  at  the  poles. 

Greedy  means  to  eat  some  food  away  from  another. 

Eager  is  to  watch  and  see  what  another  eats. 

Ravenous  means  hurry. 

Extravigrant  means  to  use  all  the  money  you  can. 

Lonesome  means  to  have  somebody  gone  away. 

Carelessly  means  to  lose  a  child. 

Invitation  means  to  go  to  a  house  to  eat. 

Business-like  is  a  man  that  works. 

Bordered  is  to  have  everything  in. 

Daughter  is  a  man's  girl. 

Enter  is  to  go  to  the  school-house. 
-Unlike  is  to  be  puplite  to  anybody. 

A  ball  is  made  out  of  leather  and  stuffins. 

A  bell  is  used  to  commence  school  with. 


g2  THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL. 

—   Dictionary  is  where  they  keep  all  the  words  people  don't  know. 

Carelessly  is  not  to  be  careless. 

The  almanac  is  to  look  up  things  with. 

The  almanac  tells  the  date  of  the  year. 

Earth  is  ground. 

A  ball  is  to  through. 

Pair  is  to  eat. 

Pare  is  shoes, 

A  book  is  a  thing  that  has  a  stiff  cover. 

A  bill  is  when  you  owe  somebody. 

Paint  is  something  red. 

Paint  is  a  yellow  color. 

The  sun  is  a  thing  that  shines  in  my  eyes. 

A  blotter  is  some  ink  and  is  on  the  paper. 

Income  is  to  come  in. 

Income  means  to  go  to  a  house. 

Passion  means  to  pass  a  car. 

Trading  is  to   biy  things. 

An  elf  is  a  small  animal. 

A  sheaf  is  any  bundle. 

Huge  means  to  feel  bad. 

Leaf  is  any  thin  piece. 

A  bell  is  something  to  ring  made  of  tin  and  iron. 

Almanac  is  a  book  with  ])icturcs  in  it. 

The  almanac  shows  us  when  it  is  going  to  rain  and  when  there 
is  going  to  be  a  knew  moon. 

l*air  is  a  fruit  that  grows  on  a  tall  tree. 


now     rilK    SCIIOI-ARS    THINK    AND    WRITK. 


93 


CONFESSIONS    OF    A    BAD    BOY    WHO    REFORMED. 

I  was  a  cureious  little  boy  when  I  first  went  to  school  I  dident 
like  to  o;o  anyway.  I  would  torment  the  teacher  the  worst  kind 
and  I  would  do  every  thing  that  she  dident  want  me  to  do  and  if 
she  wanted  me  to  do  a  thing  I  wouldent  do  it  and  she  got  so  mad 
with  me  she  would  shut  me  up  in  the  closit  but  that  dident  do  no 
good  I  would  get  out  of  the  window 
and  go  home,  when  I  got  up  to  read 
I  would  say  whatever  came  into  my 
mind  and  she  would  send  me  to  my 
seat,  and  I  would  sit  and  laugh  over 
it  like  a  monkey  but  she  thought  she 
would  try  a  new  rule  to  be  sure,  she 
would  give  me  a  good  whipping  with 
the  ruelar  when  I  dident  mind,  that  I 
got  use  to  after  a  while  and  didient 
mind  it  when  I  came  to  school  in  the 
winter  time  I  would  bring  snow  in  on 
my  feat  she  would  tell  me  to  go  back 
out.  I  was  so  cold  I  dident  want  to  and  she  would  give  me  a 
good  shaking  up  and  I  liked  it  beaucause  it  warmed  me  up.  the 
next  teacher  we  got  was  better  than  the  first  one  she  I  liked 
very  much  she  would  give  a  card  every  night  when  I  went 
home  and  she  said  I  was  the  best  boy  in  school.  I  carraid  my 
dinner  to  school,  there  was  a  big  tree  near  the  school  house  us 
boys  would  get  up  in  the  tree  to  eat  our  dinners     one  of  the  boys 


The  teacher  gives  one  of  the  boys  a 
shaking.     Drawn  by  the  boy. 


94 


THE    COUNTRY   SCHOOL. 


got  out  to  far  on  the  limb  and  it  broke  and  he  fell  but  he  loged 
on  a  nother  limb  down  a  little  ways. 


AUTHCM 


Ai.  / 


^. 


POETRY. 

Composed  on  the   26th  day  of  February. 

We  heard 
A  blue  bird 
This  morning 
As  a  warning 
That  spring  is  near 
And  is  all  most  here. 

A    LETTER. 

Harry  made  a  tobogain  Sataday.  and  we  had  som  slides  it  was 
very  very  coald  and  it  sleud  so  that  we  went  down  the  hill  back- 
wards. 

We  have  a  new  hierd  man  his  name  is  Robert  he  seams  a 
verry  good  man  so  far. 

I  can  scate  alone  but  I  fall  down  a  good  many  times.  We  scate 
on  a  pond  opersite  the  male  box. 

It  snowed  yesterday  and  rained  hard  in  the  night,  and  so  we 
have  a  crust  and  the  trees  look  like  glass  ones  and  they  look  so 
graceful  and  pretty  i  carnt  posably  discrib  them.  every  thing  is 
bcautyful. 


—     fnm  ' 

h<^- 

.  p«« 

m       Ssn    mfi. 

HOW    THE    SCHOLARS   THINK    AND    WRITE.  95 

We  JTO  to  school  now  and  the  week  shj)S  by  so  fast  that  we  find 
sataday  in  the  middle  of  the  week  so  we  should  think.  Wc  doant 
find  much  time  to  waist. 

To  day  I  had  to  see  how  many  seconds  it  took  me  to  add  84-9  + 
5^_4_|-8+7  +  8  +  9  +  8+7  +  6  +  6+7  +  8  +  9.  it  took  me  30.  but  I 
did  not  get  it  wright. 

Harry  choped  of  a  piece  of  a  log  of  slipery  elm  yesterday  and 
we  pealed  it  and  ate  some. 

Aunt  Sahra  is  a  bed  with  a  headake.  I  have  bin  sowing  on  a 
soing  machine.  Laura 

P.  S.     this  is  the  largest  letter  I  ever  rote. 

P.  S.  You  did  not  say  any  thing  about  my  last  letter  so  i 
think  it  was  rite. 


OUT    CAMPINC A    STORY. 

Once  there  was  a  boy  who  was  very  rich  he  become  so  rich  he 
bought  the  world.  One  day  he  was  out  camping  he  throught  he 
would  go  out  f  hishing  so  he  got  in  one  of  the  boats,  he  saw  some 
whales  down  to  the  lower  end  of  the  river  so  he  throught  he  would 
catch  one,  so  rowed  down  to  them,     be  four  he  got  down  there  one 


g5  THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL. 

came  and  upset  the  boat,  and  he  svvollow  him  and  the  boat  floated 
down  the  river,  so  one  day  his  mother  came  down  to  the  camp,  so 
she  went  out  in  the  boat  and  throught  she  would  catch  one  and  she 
caught  one  and  put  it  in  the  boat  it  eat  her  up  and  the  boat  floated 
down  the  river  into  the  ocen. 

COMPOSITIONS. 
JACK    FROST. 

Jack  frost  never  comes  out  in  the  summer.  But  in  the  winter  he 
is  out  every  day  then  he  bit  our  toes  and  finger.  When  he  is  here 
we  can  have  a  lot  of  fun  here  are  some  of  the  thing  that  we  can  do 
when  he  is  here  sligh  down  hifl,  make  snow  baUs,  get  sleight  ride, 
get  our  feet  wet.  But  when  he  is  gone  we  can  have  a  lot  of  fruit, 
these  are  some  of  the  fruits  pears  apples  cherry  graps.  We  can  not 
have  any  of  thoes  thing  in  the  winter.  In  the  winter  time  we  have 
more  fun  than  in  the  summer.  We  can  go  scaking  on  the  rivers. 
Some  times  Jack  Frost  does  not  freez  the  water  hard  enought  so  we 
go  into  the  water  and  get  wet.  Jack  Frost  makes  our  feet  wet  so 
when  we  take  off  our  shoes  they  stick  to  our  feet  and  so  when  we 
get  up  in  the  morning  we  have  a  hard  time  geting  them  on. 

TREES. 

Trees  grow  in  the  ground.  A  tree  is  tall,  it  bears  a  good  many 
kinds  of  fruit  one  is  apples  another  is  pears.  My  apples  trees  do  not 
bear  any  fruit,  but  they  are  yoused  for  shad  trees  and  to  get  the  sap 
to  use.     Trees  arc  very  useful.     In  the  fall  the  leaves  of  Maple  turn 


HOW    THE    SCHOLARS    THINK    AND    WRITE. 


97 


into  a  pretty  collor  red  that  makes  it  look  j)retty.  In  the  winter 
the  leaves  fall  off  of  the  trees  and  leav  them  bear.  When  the 
leaves  fall  off  people  rake  them  up,  and  use  them  for  beding.  In 
the  spring  the  trees  commence  to  leaf  out.  Trees  look  dead  in 
the  winter,  and  in  the  summer  they  do  not  look  dead  but  bright 
and  leaves  on  them.  When  trees  are  dead  they  have  no  leaves 
on  them  and  do  not  bear  any  fruit,  so  people  cut  them  down. 
Trees  look  pretty  and  bear  fruit  when  they  are  alive,  but  when 
they  are  dead  they  do  not  look  pretty  or  bear  fruit.  I  think  I 
have   ritten    quite    enough    so    I    think    I    had    better    stop. 


CHIPMUNKS. 

A      chipmunks     are     very 
prety.     And  thare  are  a  graite  -HJl  ^     0 

menny  of  them.  And  they 
eat  chestnuts  and  walnuts  and 
butternuts,  and  they  live  in 
the  woods  i  think  I  have 
seen  one.  they  are  striped, 
the  huntters  catch  them, 
they  store  thare  food  away 
to  eat  in  the  winter,  they  are 
about  as  small  as  a  good 
sized  rat.  we  see  them  in  the 
fall,  they  live  in  an  old  roten  trunks  of  trees,  they  never  come 
out  in  the  winter 

I   can  not  think  of  enny  think  elce  so   I   will  stop  Mary  Smith. 

14 


Facsimile  of  one  of  the  youngest  scholars' 
manuscript. 


THE   COUNTRY   SCHOOL. 


FISH,       . 

Fish  are  good  to  eat.     They  live  in  water  in  fresh  water  and  salt 
water,     in  ponds  brocks.     In  rivers  lakes  Atlantic  Ocean    to.     We 

catch  them  with  hooks 
and  line.  Fish  swim 
with  fins  and  tail  to. 
Some  have  no  eyes  in 
caves.  Sometimes  fish 
eat  other  fish.  Fish  eat 
insects. 


Ji/iiik/'oard  draivings. 
■  A  farmer,  his  little  girl,  and  his  7infe." 


GOING    TO    SCHOOL. 

I  like  to  go  to  school. 
I  like  to  study  in  my 
books.  I  am  in  the  third  reader  and  Arithmetic  and  Geogeraphy. 
the  school  is  made  of  brick  and  we  sing.  My  teacher  dose  haft 
to  write  songs  on  the  boart  and  then  we  learn  them  and  sing  the 
song  I  have  a  little  work  to  do  at  home.  Be  fore  I  go  to 
school  I  have  to  wash  my  face  and  hands  and  change  my  dress 
and  put  on  my  hat  and  coat  and  start  off  for  school.  And  when 
any  body  sayis  enny  sentes  that  has  aint  I  poot  it  on  the  bord 
and  leave  it  ther  till  night  and  then  rase  it.  We  have  a  tree  a 
little  awayes  from  the  school  house  and  it  is  a  good  tree  to  it  is 
a  tree  that  dose  shade  the  hose  nise.  We  have  four  girls  in  school 
nine  boys  in  school.  We  have  in  school  five  black  boards  in  school, 
the  boards  are  about  full  everv  moning.     the  schoolers  want  to  go 


HOW    THE    SCHOLARS   THINK    AND    WRITE. 


99 


to  the  boards  and  write  ther  words  We  draw  at  sehool  every 
fridday.  We  have  hut  one  teacher.  We  have  some  floer  seeds 
in  the  bed  And  I  must  tell  about  what  is  in  the  flocr-  bed 
There  are  peonies,  poppies,  sweet  peaes,  scarlet  beanes,  moring  glo- 
ries larkspur,  gladioli,  holly,  hocks. 

And  that  is  what  we  have  get  in  the  floer  bed.  And  what  we 
play  at  recess  is  Kings-land  and  squart-tag  and  stone-tag  and  wood- 
tag  and  hide  and  cop. 

MIS    HAP. 

As  I  was  driveing  in  the  corn-field  to  smooth  off  the  field  to 
plant. 


.-/    Coiituilit  ut  ]'till('v  schpfllhoKse  iii  flood  time. 


lOO  THE  COUNTRY  SCHOOL. 

I  turn  round  to  short  and  the  horses  turn  around  and  round  tell 
they  tip  the  smoother  up  endways  and  I  fell  under  it  and  the  horses 
got  fritting  and  ran  home  They  was  a  nother  man  tried  to  stop 
them  and  his  ran  a  way  up  to  the  barn 

I  haller  whoa  but  they  did  not  stop  till  they  reach  the  barn. 
Then  we  came  runing  af  the  them.  When  they  got  to  the  barn 
they  tried  to  get  in  the  door.  They  did  not  get  in  the 
door  the  pepol  in  the  house  thought  they  was  a 
team  coming  in  the  yard  and  they  went  to  the  door 
and  saw  the  horses  come  full  speed. 
A  schoolboy.  'pj^g  peopl   in    the    house    wear    scart    but    they    ran 

out  caught  thores  by  the  bridle,  the  swet  ran  off  of  one  hores 
legs  and  I  througt  he  was  bleeding.  I  back  the  hores  out  of 
the  barn  and  shith  them  up  and  took  them  down  to  the  modow 
again. 

The  End. 

GREAT    FUNS    AT    SCHOOL. 

Our  school  begins  at  nine  Oclock.  We  first  have  singing  & 
then  comes  the  lessons  There  aint  but  three  boys  in  school  larg 
enough  to  play  ball  so  we  generaly  play  Kingsland  I  live  only 
about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  the  school  house  so  I  go  home  to 
diner.  At  reces  in  the  afternoon  now  it  is  so  hot  that  we  do'nt  do 
any  tiling  but  talk.  In  June  our  school  lets  out  for  a  long  vacation. 
Then  in  the  fall  the  school  begins  again.  &  it  is  cooler  so  that  we 
play  hide  &  coop  squat  tag  etc.  Then  the  chestnuts  begin  to  get 
ripe  &  our  teacher  gives  us  a  day  to  go  chestnuting.     Then  it  begins 


HOW    THE    SCHOLARS    THINK    AND    WRITE.  jqi 

to  get  cold  &  we  hang  around  the  stove  to  keej)  warm.  Then  the 
snow  begins  to  come  &  we  have  great  fun  shding  down  hil.  There 
is  a  large  hill  in  frunt  of  the  school  house  &  we  go  down  so  fast  that 
it  takes  your  breth  away  When  it  gets  very  cold  &  the  ice  begins 
to  freze  we  skate  up  &  down  the  pond  like  the  wind.  When  it 
snows  &  covers  the  pond  we  take  a  shovel  &  broom  &  clean  it  off 
Then  after  a  while  it  begins  to  get  warm  &  the  ice  begins  to  get 
weak.  And  one  day  when  we  were  skating  the  ice  cracked  like 
every  thing  &  one  of  the  boys  got  in  but  we  did  not  stop  skating 
becaus  we  thought  it  would  soon  be  over  &  it  was  soon  over  &  it 
was  all  slush  &  mud.  And  we  made  a  raft  and  floated  around  in  the 
water  &  had  great  fun.  After  a  while  the  water  came  up  very  high 
&  the  teacher  had  to  come  to  school  in  a  boat.  &  we  had  great  fun 
catching  flood  wood  The  water  came  up  so  high  that  some  of  the 
houses  were  fluded  But  it  did  not  last  long  &  then  it  came  around 
to  hot  wether  again. 

VACATION. 

In  vacation  we  have  lots  of  fun  and  lots  of  works  first  comes 
the  seeds  to  be  sowed  then  the  potatoes  and  corn  to  be  planted. 
Then  comes  the  w^eeding  and  hoeing  to  be  done.  I  do  not  like  to 
weed  onions  it  is  a  tiresome  job  to  be  bending  over  all  day  and 
almost  breaks  my  back.  2nd  picking  strawberries  is  also  a  tiresome 
job  mutch  like  weeding  onions.  But  work  is  not  all  of  the  vacation 
there  is  some  play  such  as  playing  base  ball  Hide-and-go-seek  kings- 
land  foot  ball  etc.  Now  playing  base  ball  is  a  very  good  game  but 
you  are  apt  to  get  hurt  such  as  spraining  your  finger  smashing  your 


THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL 


teeth  etc.  the  best  of  kings-land  is  the  geting  the  one  who  is  it  on 
to  the  oposite  side  and  pull  his  hair,  football  is  a  very  ruff  game 
in  which  boys  are  hurt  quite  often.  Next  comes  the  haying  we 
begin  haying  about  the  22  of  June  that  is  our  first  haying  first  the 
grass  is  to  be  mowed  then  it  is  to  be  shook  out  then  turned  over  a 
cuple  of  times  then  raked  up  then  loaded  into  the  wagon  then 
tosed  into  the  bay  and  it  is  done.  Then  comes  the  second  hoeing 
not  so  hard  as  the  first  but  hard  enough  for  me.  Then  the  second 
haying  not  as  good  a  crop  as  the  first  and  the  hay  is  mad  just  as  the 
first  crop  which  I  told  you  about.  Then  comes  the  potatoes  to  be 
dug  then  picked  up  and  put  in  to  the  cellar.  Then  the  corn  to  be 
cut  and  then  husked  and  carried  to  the  barn  then  the  stalks  to  be 
cut  up  and  made  ready  for  the  cows  to  feed  on  during  the  winter. 
Then  the  other  vegitables  to  be  got  into  the  cellar  such  as  the  squash 
pumpkin  onions  etc.  But  to  take  it  away  through  I  think  I  had 
rather  have  vacation  than  school. 


THE    END. 


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